JK 1924 
.H49 
Copy 1 


THE 


COLOEED MAN 


AND 

THE BALLOT 


BY 


JOSEPH TF; ElENEERSON 

// 


I 


PRICE^ 30 CENTS. 





HENDERSON AND HUMPHREY 
Proprietors 


i888 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year i8S8, by 

• HENDERSON AND HUMPHREY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington^ 


All Rights Reserved,^^ 




> 


The Golobed Mae aid the-Ballot. 





HIS age is wealthy with frosty years of 
public deliberations. Time has never 
known or desired to know a day of abso¬ 
lute rest or silence. This world, social, 
religious, or political, sets upon wheels of 
perpetual motion. You may bring to rest 
the wheels of an ox-cart, or a two-horse 
wagon, or a locomotive, but the wheels 
of the universe you can never stop. 
Nor can you prevent the fretfulness and 
restlessness of the public mind, so long 
as there exists one particle of cause for such actions. 
The public itself is a little world whose activity, ad¬ 
vancement and benevolence depend upon the many 
minds that control it. You cannot interfere with, 
or trespass upon, the rights of the public, without 
affecting, directly or indirectly, the interest of the people thereof. 
All that the public has done, or can do, all that is expected of it, 
all its petitions, sayings, writings, resolutions, articles, speeches, 
and debates, all these combined, are but the voice of millions 
meeting at a common point. The advancement of the public be¬ 
tokens the advancement of the people, and vice versa. The tide 
of years is onward, not backward; and so should be the tide of a 
nation. 

Progress is the life of a nation; but retrogression its decay. 
When we move forward, we live; when we stand still, we sleep, 
and move backward, we die. Some pronounce this a ‘ ‘ swift 
age.’’ Well that depends a great deal upon circumstances. If 
the people are swift, then the “age is swift;” but if the people 
are benumbed, what about the age ? As far as the age is con¬ 
cerned, I cannot see that the Fourth of July is any hotter or 



4 


THE COLORED MAN 


longer now than it was fifty or a hundred years ago. A thousand 
years ago Christmas came on the 25th of December and it 
repeats that date yet. Our forefathers drank water as a nourish¬ 
ment for thirst. So do we. But we know a few more things 
than did our forefathers; and on the whole, understand a few 
more tricks and can perform a few more wonders. All this makes 
time noted for swiftness. The age should be described according 
to our moments. If we are making rapid improvement upon the 
deeds of those who preceded us, then we are living in a fast age. 
But one thing certain, we can never get before an age; we must 
either be with it, or behind it. 

Have we ascertained this fact? Have we ascertained the 
cause or causes of public restlessness or dissensions? If not, 
the life of our Government, the great public wake of our day, de¬ 
mand that we should seek and know the causes of a working 
pestilence to the public welfare. This age teaches us that senti¬ 
ment is the worth of life and the glory of a Republic, that it is 
golden, and to oppress it is less than brazen; that when men 
differently impressed, with different minds, different views and 
motives, different standing in life, designate some political center, 
assemble, commingle, disseminate, and interchange ideas upon 
public plans for public good, that there must be an established 
and settled mode of publicly solving political truths and deciding 
political questions. 

This fact the age has impressed upon us so sufficiently well 
that we claim to understand every mystery about it. We confess 
it to be true that all minds do not and cannot agree upon all and 
the same things at the same time, for the same reason, and in the 
same way. We know that at times and places, under circum¬ 
stances and tendencies, many minds must naturally and necessa¬ 
rily differ in various ways. We know this to be so in religion, in 
society, in our fireside conversation as in politics. 

Therefore we have most wisely decided the common method 
of measuring the varying minds and bringing to a focus the differ¬ 
ent views on the same subject. This common rule is the ballot. 
We have long since decided that the ballot be the public judge of 
the public mind. The ballot is a king; a monument of undisputed 
prestige. It is the voice of man springing from the humble fount¬ 
ains of original truth. We may become ever so indignant over 
public affairs, or ever so inflamed with passion or fretted with 



AND THE BALLOT. 


5 


questions burdening to our intellect, but midst wrath and indig¬ 
nation, frets and smiles, midst applause, midst laughter, midst 
seas of trouble or oceans of pleasure, midst all that is touched and 
polished with human thoughts and human doings, the ballot un¬ 
pestered, unmolested and unhindered, can in one moment speak 
louder and do more for man than he himself could otherwise do 
in years. Its aim is fathomed in the uttermost depths of human 
souls. It is the source and all of the mind’s wealth and the soul’s 
freedom; and its purity is the purity and holiness of a nation. 

In this country w'here man is one part citizen, and the other 
part brute, the ballot and the colored man are so apparently con¬ 
nected that one seems odd without the other. This year, 1888, 
ten million votes wall probably lye cast; of this number, one mill¬ 
ion or more will be cast by the sons of Ham. Just here a word 
about the Brother in Black, is in order. The negro problem is 
a disturbing and hurtful element in American politics. As it is 
to-day, it is injurious to the race and a curse to the nation. And 
the center of this curse is in the center of the South. There, in 
that fair land, brood disorder, violence and ill-gifted assassination. 
It is there that man is hindered, or unhindered according to his 
color. If he be white and a favorite member of Democracy, 
prejudice banishes at his approach. But if he be black or his 
color gives the least conception of the least drop of African blood, 
then I say so much the worse for him. In the South, the colored 
man is an outcast two w'ays—socially and politically. 

But these are two different curses, operating from two differ¬ 
ent sources, coursing in two different directions, having two differ¬ 
ent effects, and hence culminating at two different points. There¬ 
fore the same remedy is not applicable to both. Legislation or 
laws of the land cannot sh^pe, complete, and perfect the laws or 
rules of society and religion. This, the colored race does not 
expect or demand. This bane of social prejudice in the South 
must be wiped out, if ever, by an educated sentiment uTthe sev- 
eral localities where such evil is prevalent. There, the two races 
must be educated, or the social evil of to-day will darken the 
future cloud of both. An increased, a zealous and continued ef¬ 
fort to educate both sentiment and interest, this, together with 
thrift, pride and time, will render the black man of Dixie no more 
a scarecrow in his white neighbor’s parlor. Ignorance is, no 
doubt, the life of prejudice. This is evident from a Southern 




6 


^HE COLORED MAN 


view of the question. There the percentage of intelligence falls 
far short of that in any other section of the Union. For an illus¬ 
tration let us compare the peBcentage of education north of 
Mason and Dixon’s with that south of it. 

By the tenth census the percentage of illiteracy in New 
Jersey was 4.5; Pennsylvania, 4.6; Ohio, 3.6; Indiana, 4.8; Illi¬ 
nois, 4.3; Missouri, 8.9. South of the old sectional line, Mary¬ 
land, 16 per cent; West Virginia, 12. i; Arkansas, 28.8; Virginia, 
34 per cent, while the further south we proceed, the darker grows 
the illiterate cloud, till at times and places one-half the people are 
shrouded in ignorance. This must be erased with more force and 
advancement than heretofore. The two races must be enlightened; 
for both are in the dark; both are wanting intelligence. From 
them no obstacle should shut off the light of knowledge which is 
capable of elevating their sentiment and giving tone to their char¬ 
acter. Let the George W. Cables and C. K. Marshalls of the 
South be heard. Let them be multiplied. Such men are mon¬ 
uments of honor and mountains of progress to the civilized and 
uncivilizing world. When Southern communities bow and smile 
to their leadership, then social equality in the United States will 
be done with terrors, done with enemies. These men both are 
Southern loving and Southern loved gentlemen, but they have 
taught themselves to be just and true to all, and scorners to none. 

Rev. C. K. Marshall has the goodness to attack and repri¬ 
mand a brother divine who had Democracy conceited so deep in 
heart, and deviltry so deep in his soul, as to preach from the pulpit 
race hatred and “ nigger” inferiority. This attack was justly 
made on one Rev. J. L. Tucker, of Jackson, Mississippi. Mr. 
Marshall has the thousand thanks of Christian hearts for so 
doing. 

Mr. Cable’s attack was still more unlimited. It was an attack 
upon the thousands of his race who glory and persist in oppressing 
the oppressed. He characterizes and gives grace to the man in 
his celebrated article, “The Freedman in Equity.” Of the gifts, 
and rejections of gifts, legally granted colored men, Mr. Cable 
makes a general summary thus: “The law proffers to the freed- 
man a certain security of life and property, then holds the respect 
of the community, the dearest of earthly boons, beyond his attain¬ 
ment. It gives him certain guarantees against thieves and rob¬ 
bers, and then holds him under the unearned contumely mass of 



AND THE BALLOT 


^ood men and women. It acknowledges in constitutions and 
statutes.his title to American freedom, and then, in daily practice, 
heaps upon him, in every public place, the most obvious distinctions 
without giving ear to the humblest plea concerning mental or 
moral character. It spurns his ambition, tramples upon his 
languishing self-respect, and indignantly refuses to him, either to 
buy with money, or earn by excellence of inner life or outward 
behavior, the most momentary immunity from the public indig¬ 
nity, even for his wife and daughter.” 

Such voicing as this, lipped and penned as it was, by a white 
Southerner, tips, and more than reaches the clouds of the sanguine 
hope. Now the same and sufficient steps made for the political 
franchise of the black man, will rid the nation of a burden borne. 
Politicians must take care of politics. If the colored man is 
enslaved by political methods, then these same methods reversed 
will certainly redeem his freedom. 

Political differences create political parties; the more of us that 
differ, the more parties we create. But of all, the Republican and 
Democratic parties head the list of American politics and politi¬ 
cians. Hence one or the other always claims the ascendency. 
This is natural. Then these two will be the only parties consid¬ 
ered in this work. But a word more about the Brother in Black. 

As to the correct method of solving the Southern question, 
there is a great division of opinions—even among honest men. 
Some argue that politics is not the medium through which the 
good can be effected; that the only way of affecting the evil is to 
refrain from politics, move along in private life, accumulate prop¬ 
erty, and let the Government take care of itself. To some of 
these statements, all are duty-bound to submit. That we must 
acquire business capacities, educate, refine our persons, accumu¬ 
late property and store away treasures of wealth, no man of hon¬ 
est judgment denies. For no race forever wrapped in tattered 
garments of slothfulness, poverty, ignorance, and superstition 
can expect to attain all elements of respectability. That the 
colored race has inwardly considered, and in every way acknowl¬ 
edged, these plain facts, is indicated by its steady march up the 
hills of progress—by its advancement in art, science, wealth, 
civilization and moral integrity. That its orators, authors, 
historians, writers, poets and scientists are mutiplying, is proof 
that all colored men have not mortgaged their talents and brains 
—all to indolence and slumber. 



8 


THE COLORED MAN 


Another fact colored men must take in consideration. If we 
desire to broaden our plane of advancement, and kindle our 
influence into a national interest, we must take an active part in 
shaping the policy of our Government. We must help to refine 
the completeness of American statesmanship. We must touch 
and polish as others do. We must educate in politics as in busi¬ 
ness; for both go hand in hand. When business goes wrong, it 
is often the case that politics is at the head or foot of it. Improve 
politics, and, to a certain extent, you improve business. 

The cplpred man has a position in politics. His position is 
defined. At the very outset of his political career he began his 
march under the spotless banner of Republicanism; and without 
much variation the same line of march has been his. But all 
along the weary, dusty line of time, man is subject to changes— 
endless changes. Sometimes the changes ameliorate his condi¬ 
tion; sometimes not; and other times they tend to place him in a 
worse plight than that of his past career. So, at this critical age 
of political history, we now have what may be styled two classes 
of colored politicians, or voters. In justice to both classes, I 
shall now proceed to an impartial consideration of each, and 
thereby give all possible reason why a change of political affilia¬ 
tion among colored men, as yet, is worthless, and, more than that, 
injurious to the race and hurtful to the nation. 

One, and the favorite class of colored politicians, always grateful, 
dear, and true to race and country, and rating patriotism above rebell¬ 
ion, parties above individuals, and awake to the dearness of the 
past, and greatness of the future—this class still honorably and 
truly holds fast to the flag that made, blessed, and yet honors a 
free and united country. And it is glorious to know that such a 
class has within it all the controlling elements of the race. This 
is the rule and majority class of colored voters and politicians. 
All else is but a branching naught. This branching naught is a 
minority class which believes, or pretends to believe, that time 
demands the colored man’s change of political sentiment. It 
argues that it is a sin to go beyond the veil of yesterday to seek 
and trace a record upon which we may base our political standing 
to-day. It admits that the Republican party freed the country, 
but claims that it did so more for policy’s than virtue’s sake. 

This age has its many peculiarities. Personal abuse, political 
slanderi and party vengeance all come in the order of time and 



AJVB THE BALLOT 


9 


place. In spite of the living tendency to civilize, yet all men 
and bodies of men have had a kind of self-instruction as to the 
propriety and impropriety of retaliation. Now to the point. 
The minority or ‘ ‘ handful ’ ’ class of colored politicians claim 
(for their excuse) that “ time changes all things.” Who denies 
it? But it must be borne in mind that some things time changes 
and proves; while other things, time has made no utter stress 
either to change or prove. Has time proved that the Republican 
party is now unfit, and the Democratic party fit, for the colored 
man’s recognition? Has it proved that the American people 
have no more use for histories than mere parlor ornaments; or 
that we should no longer refer to past records for past facts ? Has 
it proved that the peerless pen of Lincoln is peer no more, and 
that now colored men should rise up with indignation, spite, and 
ingratitude and spurn the godly deeds that spoke death unto the 
whipping-post, and enabled us to reach forth and kiss skies of 
eternal liberty? Is this the change that time now invites us to 
make? God forbid. Time is the surest and most reliable rock 
of record; and upon it, everything that man does or attempts 
to do, is somewhere recorded for eternity. For time is the only 
eternity that is. Therefore, in order to be fair, just, and impartial 
judges, w^e must refer to time past, and time present, and thereby 
attain a fair estimate of the time future. 

The Republican party leaped forth into existence when not 
only the welfare and prosperity of the American Republic were 
arrested and checked, but when the vital cords of it were being 
drawn and the life of it threatened. This well-deserved party 
made its bold and dashing appearance from behind dark clouds 
of storm and smoke; vestured with truth, ironed with fearlessness 
and armed with justice, it faced the-world almost naked, wearing 
only two garments, the garments of union and freedom. Nobody 
can deny it. No Christian ever did, no saint ever will. When it 
had fully mounted the stage of existence, it found this almost a 
poverty-stricken nation—loving freedom on one hand and slavery 
on the other. Everywhere flames of destruction were intensely 
heatM and bounding skyward. This country was then hardly a 
nation. It was like a son rebelling against a father; one part of the 
country had its foot in the grave, and the other was being drawn 
thereto. This was done to make human beings brutal slaves; to 
make the nation not the nation. It was this critical day when 




TO 


THE COLORED MAN 


the Republican party made its welcome bow to the busy world. 

In spite of all contrary arguments, in spite of all avoidance 
for the search of evidence and the establishing of the truth, it be¬ 
hooves us to sail beyond the winds of yesterday, and correctly 
trace the two great parties to date. This should be done, not for 
vengeance or spite, not because the million colored voters are in 
a desperate fight for democracy, but to cautiously weigh and 
consider the unfounded and unreasonable claims of colored men 
allying themselves with the Democratic party. As I have said, 
it is but a ‘ ‘ handful ’ ’ of these Democratic disciples, but let us 
weigh them. They admit (sometimes by a cross-argument) that 
President Lincoln was the author of the Emancipation Proclama¬ 
tion, but proceed to defend and offend by re-arguing that it was 
more of an accident than an inattention; that he did not mean a 
word of it, and would never have written or signed it had it not 
been for some false policy. In order to corroborate and give 
polish to their unbelieved, pretended belief, it gives these Demo¬ 
cratic allies a certain degree of pleasure to cite and recite particu¬ 
lar passages of President Lincoln’s inaugural address. These 
marked and favorite passages of Democratic references consist of 
those words and lines in which Mr. Lincoln assured the red-hot 
and jealous-hearted rebels that it was no intention of his to inter¬ 
fere with their slave property. This one statement, the Bourbons, 
for an ill purpose, have circulated so continually and so repeatedly 
that its usage has become almost obsolete. But now, a thing 
once worn out by Bourbons, is frequently picked up and re¬ 
newed by a few office-seeking colored men. 

But a concise and passing review of Lincoln’s a7ite bellum 
record will be sufficient proof that he hated slavery without one 
word of excuse. He believed that slavery was a curse, that the 
sooner its existence met death face to face, the better for the na¬ 
tion. In this respect his actions were wholly bent. In all his de¬ 
bates this man of humble birth, but noble endeavors, was never 
found arguing for slavery on one hand and freedom on the other. 
A dozen years or more before the dawn of the late Rebellion, 
Abraham Lincoln championed the cause of liberty with the bold¬ 
ness of a lion and the fearlessness of a God. At that time, distant 
from the thought of his being President, or of his connection with' 
a rebellion, he began a zealous fight for freedom. It was then that 
he introduced a bill in Congress that provided for the total aboli- 



AND THE BALLOT 


II 


tion of slaves in the District of Columbia. This bill was pro¬ 
nounced radical —too radical for its red-hot antagonists. His 
motives ever were pure and golden. From one line of march to 
another, Lincoln never wavered from right to wrong. These 
were his characteristics when he entered the campaign for the 
presidency in i860. More than all, he w^as elected upon a plat¬ 
form that made this a free and united country. He knew it; so 
does everybody. No honesty denies it; assassins denied it; they 
are hanged; rebels denied it; they surrendered. Democrats now 
frequently deny it, but they contradict and dispute themselves 
at all odd times and chances. Abraham Lincoln wrote the 
Emancipation Proclamation with motives as pure as purity would 
have them. 

Consider for a moment the platform upon which he was 
elected. Read that part which said: “That to the union of 
States, the nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, 
its development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of 
wealth, its happiness at home and honor abroad, and we hold in 
abhorrence all schemes for disunion. . . . That the mere 

dogma that the Constitution of its own forces carries slavery into 
any or all of the United States, is a dangerous heresy at variance 
with the explicit provisions of that instrument, is revolutionary 
in its tendency, and subservient of the peace and harmony of the 
country. That the normal condition of the Territories of the 
United States is that of freedom. . . . And we deny the 

authority of Congress [etc., as in 1856]. That we brand the re¬ 
cent re-opening of African slave trade under the cover of our na¬ 
tional flag, as a crime to humanity, and a burning shame to our 
country and age. In the recent vetoes by the Federal governors 
of the acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting 
slavery in the Territories, are a practical illustration of boasted 
Democratic principle of non-intervention and popular sovereignty 
embodied in the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, and a demonstration 
of the deception and fraud involved therein.’’ 

That platform, every word of it, embodied the sacred senti¬ 
ment of Lincoln’s heart and soul. He loved peace, and his im- 
passionate remarks in his inaugural address sought to appease 
the minds and bury the jealousies of inflamed rebels. That 
address stands without parallel. It was made under every 
disadvantage. That he loved liberty better than slavery and 



12 


THE COLORED MAN 


peace better than war, we have everything for witness and 
nothing to the contrary. When he was making his address 
he knew that he was standing upon a platform that meant 
war to rebels and death to slavery. He knew th^ the 
country was upon the eve of war, and that that war could 
be unnecessarily hastened and inflamed by an indignant speech 
or any very radical remarks from him. He knew that the 
party upon whose shoulders lay the task of freeing and saving 
the country was in its infancy; that this party had triumphed at 
the polls over an evil and undeserved party, and that, by prudence, 
patience and justice, the same infant party would triumph in 
Congress, when the death of slavery and the union of the States 
would be certain. He knew how well the bitter speeches and 
sayings of his most radical opponents represented the Bourbon 
section of the country. More than all, he knew that his address 
was the first of the kind ever delivered in this country, and its 
nature gave it splendid hope of kissing war flames. Only God 
can tell what all this man Lincoln did know. Therefore, in spite 
of his ardent desire for both union and freedom. President Lincoln 
stood upon a platform that meant both, and with an eye single to 
harmony and peace, addressed his countrymen in a calm,, unin¬ 
flamed and uninflaming manner. Could saints have expected 
more ? 

What can the enemies of the Republican party mean when 
they make these biased and unholy assertions ? They must mean 
something more than common, or they would not make such 
daring ventures. If it were not for the effect that argument has, 
or is intended to have, there would be no argument. When men 
found themselves in a conversational pinch, they would simply 
blow w’histles, which would answer flie purpose of argument; in 
other words, whistling would then be reasoning. But not so. 
Reason and argument each has its place. When we argue, we 
desire for the weight or effect of our argument to be felt; if we 
fail in this, we say that we have made a displayed failure. So 
when Democrats assert that Lincoln wrote that heavenly-praised 
document with an intent to deceive, then these Democrats or 
Democratic allies mean something. They mean first that their 
argument is of important weight, and deserves public recognition. 
But they never acknowledge to a displayed failure. If they fail 
to receiye recognition, then they begin to criticise others as blind 




AJVn THE BALLOT. 


13 


partisans. If they mean, as they imply, that Lincoln’s speeches 
and writings were falsely intended, what effect do they desire for 
such reports to have upon the public? Do they tell us that for 
the sake of telling, or do they intend thereby for colored men to 
take the hint and give the Republican party the grand bounce ? 
The latter meaning seems more probable. Well, be it so. If Lin¬ 
coln wrote for the union of the States, simply that, and nothing 
more, if the Republicans fought for the union of the States, 
simply that and nothing more, pray, what did Mr. Jeff. Davis write 
for? What did the Bourbon South fight for? If the Republi¬ 
can platform of i860 deserves red-hot condemnation, what kind 
of a condemnation does the platform of the Secessionists deserve? 
South Carolina, the headquarters of Republican abuses, rose up 
in i860 and led her sister allies to a shameful rebellion against 
a loyal country. South Carolina’s platform embodied that of 
the States that followed her. Read the platform;— 

“We, the people of South Carolina, in convention assem¬ 
bled, do declare artd ordain that South Carolina, in exercise of 
her sovereign will as an independent State, acceded to the Fed¬ 
eral Union (May 23, 1788), and that in exercise of the same sov¬ 
ereign will to secede from the said Federal Union.” As to the 
meaning of this platform, Mr. Alex. H. Stephen, vouching 
himself for explanation, said;— 

“Our new Government, March 21, 1861, is founded upon 
exactly the opposite idea (to the equality of race); its foundations 
are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro 
is not equal to the white man, that slavery,—subordination to the 
superior race,—is his natural and normal condition. . . . 

The negro, by nature, or by that curse against Canaan, is fitted 
for that condition which he occupies in our system, and by experi¬ 
ence we know it is best, not only for the superior but the inferior 
race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the 
Creator.” 

Colored Democrats, how does that sound? Which seems 
worse, Lincoln’s address or Stephen’s explanation ? My motto is. 
If you have a desire to grumble and will grumble, grumble about 
something. 

Twenty-five years ago, who would have dreamed that as early 
as 1888, writers, authors, and orators would have the slightest 
occasion to indulge in historical figures, refer to all grades of 



H 


THE COLORED MAN 


references, pick up histories, past sayings, articles, orations, 
debates, petitions, and resolutions, to prove that Lincoln wrote 
the Emancipation Proclamation with no intent to deceive, and 
that the Republican party fought for both Union and freedom with 
no policy in view, save the policy of principle? When, twenty- 
seven years ago, the Union soldiers, brave men and daring heroes, 
ventured down the lanes of battle and death, to dare and do at 
the commands of captains and generals, who commanded the 
braves to shoulder musket in defense of home and liberty, then 
not a soul of African blood or sympathy added aught against 
Lincoln or the Republican party. Then we all could have bathed 
our cheeks in rivers of tender sympathy, love and reverence for 
the friends of men and country. But now they tell that those 
things are past, past and dead—and we should pass them on, 
unthought of again. P'ar be it from such. Christian acts and 
noble deeds, crowned with righteousness and goodness, float for¬ 
ever on with the smiles of time. 

As Americans, we are a celebrating people. We love to 
remind ourselves and our posterity of deeds, though crowned 
with wrinkles of age, yet nobly done. In 1492, Columbus dis¬ 
covered America; that event we shall celebrate from the sunrise 
of one generation to the sunset of the last. In 1776, July 
4, the Declaration of Independence was jeweled into precious 
existence. Americans claim no prouder day than that glorious 
Fourth; and we always give it a joyous and unanimous celebra¬ 
tion. In 1789, George Washington became the first President of 
the United States. Washington is dead; but his tombstone bears 
fresh and green the memory of his days; and in 1889, this nation 
will awake the world with hallelujahs of Washington praise. In 
1862 Abraham translated and transformed the Declaration of 
Independence into living English and thereby made its meaning 
so plain and simple that even a blind man could explain and 
understand it. This deed we also celebrate. W^e erect tomb¬ 
stones to the holy cause of that humble and impeachable soul. 
But when we claim that he wrote one word and meant another, 
when we through political treachery brand him as a traitor in dis¬ 
guise, then we spurn the cause, mar the name of that good man, 
and, beastly-like, splash mud on his tombstone. 

In the foregoing conclusions it has been no aim of mine to 
falsely turn the course, or blind the reason, of man; for such, in- 



AA^B THE BALLOT 


15 


deed, would be inconsistent with the aimed-for and intended 
light of my argument. It would be treason to man to shut off 
from him the light and knowledge of the present, and meaningly 
bury his reasoning beneath the closing shades of the rusty past. 
Such should be far beyond the expectation of the most sanguine 
partisans. It would be ill reasoning and unfair judgment to 
argue that a man or set of men should advocate one party or op¬ 
pose the other regardless of the merits or demerits of each. Far 
be it from my intention. 

Trace the Republican party from its earliest to the latest- 
date, you will find that the colored man’s loyalty to that party is 
the born and living principle of man. Both the great parties are 
but the offspring of some branching principles that rooted and 
flourished long years ago. But these principles should be justly 
considered, and both traced to these busy days of 1888. 

The Republican party is historically young; but those snowy¬ 
headed fathers that handed down to it humble feelings, noble 
principles and living characters, lived when the party was un¬ 
dreamed of It is not strange, though true, that more than one 
hundred years before the American Colonies began their famous 
struggle for liberty, anti-slavery sentiment had a zealous growth. 
The Quakers held meetings and protested with life and vigor 
against the baneful institution of slavery. This noticeable event 
dates two hundred years back. Every year added to them zeal 
and hope. They organized themselves into abolition societies, 
had regular meetings, resolved measures, introduced resolutions, 
debated and discussed them with an eye single to duty. Among 
all questions discussed, slavery had no rest. They argued and 
even warned it in the minds of those who strenuously opposed a 
mere mention of the question. The cause extended with the ad¬ 
vancement of time. In 1701 M assachusetts put herself on record 
as making an early struggle for liberty. She told the world that 
freedom was her choice; that she believed involuntary servitude 
to be inconsistent with, and antagonistic to, the twin sisters of 
progress and civilization, and that it was criminal and unjust. As 
early as 1727, a few public men even in the slave-holding districts 
held it to be in harmony with God and justice to put a final stop 
to the slave traffic. 

Thus began the great struggle and thus it went. It worked 
its way from individuals to societies, and from societies to Legisla- 




i6 


THE COLORED MAN 


tures. Then the contest became hot and lasting.^ Prayerful and 
patriotic efforts were made. Anti-slavery struggles were the or¬ 
der of time. Y^ears rolled on. Sectional dispute arose, livery- 
body claimed victory. The glorious North advocated freedom; 
the angry and bigoted South, slavery, and both struggled for 
prestige in Congress. The North held that all Territories should 
be admitted into the Union as free States; but the sentiment of the 
South was to the reverse. The following States will serve to give 
color to the respective sentiment of each section. 

Vermont was admitted into the Union in 1791, free; Ken¬ 
tucky, 1792, slave; Tennessee, 1796, slave; Ohio, 1802, free; Louis¬ 
iana, 1812, slave; Indiana, 1816, free; Mississippi, 1817, slave; 
Illinois, 1818, free. About this time the sectional control was 
very close, the North having control of the House and the South 
of the Senate. In order to outnumber the Northern States, the 
Southerners laboriously strove for the admission of Arkansas and 
Missouri. Then the work began in earnest. The result crowned 
the pages of history with gleaming wonders. Great and wonder¬ 
ful deeds followed, such as heated debates, personal threats, sec¬ 
tional abuse, party ambition, the Missouri Compromise, the 
threats of disunion, the struggles of abolitionists, the Free Soil 
party, the wrath of rebels, the assassination of anti-slavery men; 
and through the whole time, every particle of air was in con¬ 
stant motion—vibrating the rebounding echoes of freedom, till at 
last the matter in question reached a point of satisfactory con¬ 
clusion between the historical dates of Fort Sumter and Appo¬ 
mattox. Everybody knows the result. 

Along the unwavering line of peace and war the high-aimed 
and high-aiming Republican party represented those whose prin¬ 
ciples were consistent with a free and untrampled government. 
And all along the same line the Democratic party represented the 
reverse. Let us view the two great parties as they appear and 
are in 1888. 

Though the God-beloved Quakers of two hundred years ago 
hold no more abolition meetings; though Garrison, Philips, Sum¬ 
ner, Clay, Lincoln, Grant and others from whose honey-dewed 
lips dropped eloquence of human tones—are mingling with the 
gray clods of silence and death; though the heroic battles of 
America have been fought and won; though the Rebellion has 
been crushed to earth to rise no more, and the dense smoke of 




ANB THE BALLOT 


17 


the greatest smoke on earth is gradually falling behind the mount¬ 
ains of time—yet if we look, look and reflect without malice or ill- 
pride, without bought prejudice or mean contempt—if we cool 
our passion and calm our minds and examine the records of 
yesterday, we shall find that the Republican party still heads and 
leads the world in patriotism, justice, fair play, purity of spirits, 
and nobility of deeds. 

The Democratic party clains that it has advanced. Perhaps 
so. But its advancement has not been sufficient to wipe off the 
skim of its prejudice. This is its stumbling-block. It may be 
true that Northern Democrats have not race prejudice so deeply 
dyed into their souls as have their Southern allies, but Northern 
Democracy is a failure without the Bourbon South. And the 
Bourbons cannot aid Democracy to a great extent without stealing 
votes, or intimidating voters. So of all the cruelties and outrages 
heaped upon the black man of the South, none of these Northern 
Democrats dare condemn. Hence a description of Southern 
Democracy includes the four corners of the party, for one. part 
would go to pieces without the other. 

Two decades ago, the South advocated “ku-klux” bands, 
mob laws and all manner of human intimidations, and such is its 
principle still. Then a white man would spit upon a colored 
lady’s dress without a grunt, and he is applauded for the same 
offense now. In my early teens. Democratic deviltry has attracted 
my attention to scenes of sadness. Then if a white man pre¬ 
sented himself in the wilds of Texas as a teacher of colored 
children, he was everywhere styled a carpet-bagger; and more 
than that, some night (dark or moonshine) he would find himself 
surrounded with rough men of his color, who were armed with 
everything a desperado dares to think of; and thus prepared, 
they at once give orders to the ‘ ‘ carpet-bagger ’ ’ to make his exit 
from the place in less time than twenty-four hours. The same 
thing would be repeated in 1888 if the white man in question 
risked his judgment to trespass upon Southern sentiment. But 
Texas is not alone, for all the old slave States fall in the same 
line of injustice. It was but March, 1888, that in South Carolina 
the life of a railroad agent was jeopardized by a Southern mob; 
here is the cause summed up: The agent had just conducted a 
train to South Carolina, that had been employed to carry a lot of 
colored people from that State to California. He was stopping 
2 



i8 


THE COLORED MAN 


at a hotel, and while thinking himself in a land of peace and 
safety, he was suddenly surprised when all at once a threatening 
note was handed him. It was a note of warning. It commanded 
him to “leave” or endure* the consequences. Still believing 
himself to be in a free land, the agent idled around the South 
Carolina hotel until almost too late, for these angry Bourbons 
visited him^ and, too, with loaded pistols. And it was only the 
bravery of the hotel people, and the goodness of God, that, per¬ 
haps, saved the agent’s life. This was to awe him and all others 
from further conducting trains into South Carolina for the purpose 
of carrying off her “field hands.” This happening was notin 
1868, but in 1888. Free men debarred from going to a free 
country—all in 1888! But, too. South Carolina has her disciples; 
she was followed by her Southern sisters in i860; and she is fol¬ 
lowed by them still. 

Southern brutality has no equal. It is a burning shame to 
the map of the United States. It is a human crime in the super¬ 
lative degree—a burden to the black man, and a curse to the 
nation. The Democrats of the North and West wear these gar¬ 
ments of principles. They may be fitly called bull-dozing helpers ; 
for they assist and encourage the false and corrupt Democratic 
claim of the one hundred and fifty-three electoral votes. They 
rely upon a Democratic South to falsely maintain a Democratic'su- 
premacy. They persist in the continuation of the already inaug¬ 
urated fraud. But figures carry with them more weight and proof 
than mere words or comment. Therefore, I shall verify my state¬ 
ment, and simplify my meaning, by reproducing an official table 
contained in an article from the well-known pen of Mr. Murat Hal¬ 
stead. The table sets forth such facts and proof as no one can 
reasonably dodge. Mr. Halstead introduces the table thus:— 

Here is. a list of twenty-eight of the Democrats in the 
House of Representatives, with a majority of colored people in 
their several districts:— 


Representatives. 

Janies F. James. 

H. A. Herbert. 

Districts. 

.... 2d... 

States. 

ALABAMA. 

Colored majority. 

.. .. 249 

William C. Oates... 




A. C. Davidson. 

_ 4th... 

GEORGIA. 


H. G. Turner. 

... 2d... 



Charles F. Crisp .... 




Thomas M. Grimes.. 






















4Nn THE BALLOT 


19 


Thomas H. Blount 
H. H, Carlton .... 
Geo. T. Barnes.... 

N. C. Blanchard .. 

C. Newton. 

E. M. Roberston.. 


6th. 

8th. 

10th. 

LOUISIANA. 

4th. 

5th . 

6th. 


8,229 

4,180 

6,145 


5,752 

22,154 

4,545 




J. B. Morgan... 
T. C. Catchings 

T. G. Barry_ 

C. L. Anderson 
T. R. Rockdale 
C. E. Hooker.. 


F. M. Simms, 


MISSISSIPPI. 


2d. 

3d. 

4th. 

5th. 

6 th. 

7th. 

NORTH CAROLINA. 

2d . 


2,468 

14,720 

5,773 

1,570 

1,327 

6,440 


9,538 


Samuel Dibble. 
G. D. Tillman., 
J. D. Cothran . 
W. H. Perry . 
J. J. Hemphill. 
G. W. Dargan . 
William Elliot, 


James Phelan 


SOUTH CAROLINA. 


1st. 2,236 

2d . 6,643 

3d. 1,200 

4th. 1,590 

5th.2,610 

6th. 3,296- 

7 th.24,899 

TENNESSEE. 

10th. 3,673 


Below is a continued list of explanation of the Congressional 
election of 1886:— 


Districts. 

States. 

Republican vote. 

Colored voters. 

1st .. 



.14,889 

<>,1 

(i 

( i 

.2,382 


a 

i t 

. 1,477 

1st. 



.12,291 


a 

(i 

. 342 

1st. 


. . 17 . 

.14,148 

2d. 

i i 

.. None. 

.17,881 

^,1 

i < 

ii 

.1?,297 

/l+L 


. 3.30 .. 

.17,956 

5th. 

<< 

.. None. 

.13,188 

RfW 

u 

U 

.20,920 


t i 

( i 

.20,846 

infK 

i i 

a 

.17,335 

4th . 

. . Louisiana. 

i i 

.18,.375 


a 

. 495 .. 

.20,089 



. 420 . 

.18,707 

1st. 

.. . Mississippi. 

(( 

. .. .13,668 

.20,597 



ii 

.19,897 

oun. 


(( 

.19,166 

1st. 

.. . South Carolina.. 

ti 

.12,998 


U 


.17,096 


i( 

a 

.13,757 


ii 


.17,519 


i < 

i 6 


6th. 

( 6 

ii 

.14,886 




























































































































20 


THE COLORED MAN 


In the table annexed appear the majority of colored voters 
over the whites in the twenty-eight Southern districts already 
mentioned as represented by Democrats, and the Democratic 
majorities, as returned, are also given:— 

Districts. States. Colored majority. Democratic majority. 

18S0. 1886. 

oa “ . 249. 5,659 

3d. 

4th. 

2d. 

3d. 

4th. 

6th. 

8th. 

1 nth 

< < 

(( 

a 

a 

.3,149_ 

.20,612... 

. 3,763.... 

. 2,431.... 

. 2,947... . 

. 8,229.... 

.6,145_ 

.4,662 

.7,868 

.2,411 

. 1,704 

4th. 


. 5,753 ... 


5th. 

<< 


.13,123 

6th. 

“ . 

. 4,545.... 

. 9,250 

2d. 


. 2,469.... 


3d. 

.14,720.... 

. 2,136 

4th. 

_ “ _ 

. 5,773.... 

. 2,842 

5th. 

n 

. 1,570. 

. 4,262 

6th. 

(< 

...... 1,327.... 

. 4,462 

7th. 


. 6,440_ 

. 4,502 

2d. 


. 9,538.... 

. 2,078 

1st. 


. 2,236_ 

. 3,313 

2d. 

a 

. 6,613. 

. 5,189 

3d. 


. 1,200... 

. 4,395 

4th. 

ts 

. 1,592_ 

. 4,470 

5th. 

_ “ 

. 2,610,... 

.4,691 

6th. 


.. 3,296. 


7th. 

<1 

.24,899_ 

. 532 

10th. 


. 3,673.... 

.39,961 


This is what the Democrats call political equality. This is 
the Democratic idea of a good government. With them, the 
government is good only when enough colored men can be bull¬ 
dozed and killed to seat enough unelected Democrats to control 
the country. Again, this is why the Democrats dodge the issue 
of fair and honest elections. 

They know that all along their treacherous, political path can 
be traced the blood of colored Republicans from Virginia to Texas. 
They know that since the war, the Democrats'have killed and 
otherwise unjustly punished such a number of colored men as 
would be capable of leading a vast army to victory. They know 
that in so doing they have inaugurated and perpetuated a fraudu¬ 
lent government. This is why they sing the “ bloody shirt.” 

If one Democrat were asked why it is necessary to mob one 
set of men in order to elect another, how could he possibly 





















































































AND THE BALLOT 


21 


answer? But if there be one Democrat who possesses such 
wealth of genius and steel of daring as to venture an explanation 
of the known course of his party, I would be pleased to stand 
him before this great people and strangle him with plain, hard- 
sense questions. And I dare say that when he had finished his 
answers and explanations, the world would apparently be shaken 
up with a general misunderstanding. For how could he give 
general satisfaction about the cold blood of colored men that 
less than six years ago painted the city of Danville, and plunged 
that fair city into endless mourning—all to put an end to colored 
officers. 

How he could dare go to Carrolton, Mississippi, where a 
Democratic mob of one hundred armed ruffians, unmasked, 
unalarmed, unhindered, and unawed by legal authorities, advanced 
in a court of action, presented themselves before a Democratic 
judge, attorney, and jury, unshouldered their guns, took deliber¬ 
ate aim at innocent, unarmed, unwarned, and unprotected colored 
men, and made that so-called legal spot a slaughter-pen of human 
lives! How could he go there and explain his party to be right? 
Mr. Democrat, again, how is it in Texas, Louisiana’s biggest 
sister? How is it that Brenham, the county seat of Washington 
County, became the scene of so much trouble and the breaking 
of colored men’s necks from the result of the congressional election 
of 1886? How is it that Washington, the population of which 
is eighty per cent colored, went Democratic, and, too, after a 
Democratic correspondent had sent abroad such correspondence 
as the following: “Washington County will go Democratic. 
The county has been strongly Republican ever since the war; but 
now the Democrats are determined that radical rule in this county 
shall be ended forever.” 

Mr. Democrat, Texas may prove too large for your explana¬ 
tion. If so, go to Alabama and explain there. How is it that in 
three congressional districts not a one of the 18,748 colored 
voters voted in the election of 1886? How is it in Georgia? 
How is it, Mr. Democrat, that in nine congressional districts, only 
347 of the 115,580 colored voters voted? How is it in Arkansas, 
that in two congressional districts not one of the 12,633 colored 
voters voted ? How is it in Louisiana, that in three congressional 
districts only 915 of the 57,171 colored voters voted? How is 
it in Mississippi, that in four congressipnal districts not one of 



22 


THE COLORED MAN 


the 73,328 colored voters voted? How is it in South Carolina, 
that in six congressional districts not one of the 89,690 colored 
voters voted? Mr. Democrat, you cannot explain, and thousands 
of plain questions could be added to your list of vexation; but 
it is useless; for you will only sing the familiar old tune, the 
“ bloody shirt.” 

It is neither in the power of tongue nor force of pen to give 
even a dim description of the black man’s suffering in Dixie. 
For there he is not only ostracized because of his Republicanism, 
but also for Africanism. The laws of society, the laws of the 
church, and the laws of both country and State, operate 
successively and successfully against the Southern colored 
man, and simply because he is colored. Even in this historic 
year of 1888, thousands and thousands of colored men are 
serving their days out in Southern prisons without having the 
least suspicion of crime. They are tried in Southern courts, by 
Southern men, before Southern juries, with all justice and fairness 
barred against them. They may have evidence so plain and so 
bountiful as to readily award them a diploma of innocence, yet, if 
these black and innocent criminals are the least disliked by their 
white neighbors, the minds of the jury are already made up 
before the attorney begins his argument for or against the defend¬ 
ants. The sentiment of the community is the sentiment of the 
jury. Hence, the colored defendants’ unjust and unwelcome 
ride to the Southern whipping-posts. As to Georgia, Mr. Cable 
corroborates this statement. He tells us that the number of 
State prisoners of Georgia, October 20, 1880, was 1,173. Of 
this number 102 were white and 1,071 colored. This is a fair 
specimen of legal equality in every Southern State; that is, say¬ 
ing that out of every 79,812 white persons of Georgia, only one 
commits a crime; while out of every 676 colored persons, one 
is tried and convicted of some accused crime; or the convictions 
stand ten colored persons to one white. But only once con¬ 
sider the proportions of pardons, and the table is reversed. 
For Mr. Cable further states that the number of pardons granted 
the year then ending was 52 in all, 22 of which were white, and 
30 colored. How does that compare in proportion with the 
number of white and colored prisoners ? There were, as stated, 
1,071 colored prisoners; of this number less than three per cent 
were pardoned, while more than twenty-one per cent of the white 



AND THE BALLOT. 


23 


prisoners met with the same favor. This is the Bourbon idea of 
“nigger” equality, and the colored politician who will dare 
swallow such pills next November has a heart more than heart¬ 
less. 

Northern Democrats may cry out, ^nocent, innocent! 
Southern Democrats may cry out. Peace, peace! But so long as 
Southern brutality, serpent-like, can coil and breathe, there can be 
no peace. So long as this method of Democratic civilization 
dominates human forces, so long will our Government hold from 
the black man the jewels it so freely promised him. So long as 
this system of human outlaws is upheld and defended by Church 
and State, so long will the veil of corruption continue to spread 
and reach from gulf to lake-shore. So long as the Republican 
be mute and neutral on this all-important subject, so long will the 
cut-throats of the South continue their unjust hold on our Govern¬ 
ment and thereby perpetuate fraud and ruin upon this fair nation. 

If this nation does not see to it that this Southern evil be 
ended, it will not always remain in Dixie and this will not always 
be a nation. The evil soon or late will take its flight across 
the plains, across the one and the only line of political division. 
Then our much and too-often-praised Government will be darkened 
with one vast cloud of political corruption. General Harrison 
gives a full hint of this fact in his Detroit speech. Below is his 
speech in full, which is manly, fearless, patriotic and meets the 
approval of all law-abiding citizens. He said:— 

“Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Michigan 
Club: I feel that I am at some disadvantage here to-night by reason 
of the fact that I do not approach Detroit from the direction of 
Washington City. I am a dead Statesman [no, no]; but I am a 
living and rejuvenated Republican. I have the pleasure to-night, 
for the first time in my life, of addressing an audience of Michigan 
Republicans. Your invitations in the past have been frequent 
and urgent, but I have always felt that you knew how to do yotir 
own work; that we could trust stalwart Republicans of this 
magnificent State, to hold this key of the lakes against all com¬ 
ers. I am not here to-night in expectation that I should be able to 
help you by. any suggestion, or even kindle into greater earnest¬ 
ness that zeal and interest in your Republican principles which 
your presence here to-night so well attests. I am here rather to 
be helped myself, to bathe my soul in this high atmosphere of 
patriotism and pure Republicanism [applause] by spending a little 
season in the presence of those who loved and honored and fol¬ 
lowed the Cromwell of the Republican party, Zachariah Chandler. 
[Tremendous applause.] 




24 


THE COLORED MAN 


‘ ‘ The sentiment which has been assigned me to-night, ‘ Wash¬ 
ington, the Republican, a free and equal ballot the only guarantee 
of the nation’s security and perpetuity,’ is one that was sup¬ 
ported with a boldness of utterance, with a defiance that w'as un¬ 
excelled by any leader, Zachariah Chandler [applause] always and 
everywhere. As Republicans w^e are fortunate, as has been sug¬ 
gested in the fact that there is nothing in the history of our party, 
nothing in the principles that we advocate, to make it impossible 
for us to gather and celebrate the birthday of any American who 
honored and defended his country. [Cheers.] We could even 
unite with our Democratic friends in celebrating the birthday of 
Jackson, because we enter in fellowship with him, when we read 
his story of how, by proclamation, he put down nullification in 
South Carolina. [Applause.] We could meet with them to cele¬ 
brate tne birthday of d'homas Jefferson, because there is no note 
in the immortal Declaration or in the Constitution of our country, 
that is out of harmony with Republicanism. [Cheers.] But our 
Democratic friends are under limitations. They have a short 
calendar of saints, and they must owe it from the history of those 
whose names are on the calendar of the best achievements of 
their lives. I do not know what the party is preserved for. Its 
history reminds me of the bow'lder in the stream of progress, im¬ 
peding and resisting its onward flow, and moving only by the 
force that it resists. 

“ I want to read a very brief extract from a most notable paper 
that was to-day, in the Senate at Washington, read from the desk 
by its presiding officers, the farew^ell address of Washington; and 
while it is true that I cannot quote or find in the writings of 
Washington anything specifically referring to the ballot-box fraud, 
to tissue ballots, to intimidation, to forged talley sheets [cheers] 
for the reason that these things had not come in his day to dis¬ 
turb the administration of his Government, yet in the comprehen- - 
siveness of the words he uttered, like the comprehensive declara¬ 
tion of the Holy Book, we may find admonition and guidance 
even with reference to a condition of things that his pure mind 
could have never contemplated. 

“Washington said: ‘ Liberty is indeed little less than a name 
where the Government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of 
factions to confine each member of the society within the limits 
prescribed by law, and maintain the secure and tranquil enjoy¬ 
ment of the rights of persons and property.’ 

“If I had read that to a Democratic meeting they would 
have suspected that it was an extract from some Republican 
speech. [Laughter.] My countrymen, this Government, that 
which I like to think of as my country—for acres, or railroads, or 
farm products, or bulk meat, or Wall Street, or all combined, are 
the country that I love. It is the institution, the form of govern¬ 
ment, the frame of civil society, for which that flag stands and 



AND THE BA EL or. 


25 


which we love. It is what Mr. Lincoln so tersely, yet so felici¬ 
tously described as the Government of the people, by the people 
and for the people; a Government of the people because they insti¬ 
tuted it—the Constitution reads, ‘We, the people, have ordained; ’ 
by the people, because it is in all its departments controlled by them; 
for the people, because it states as its object of supreme attainments, 
the happiness, security, and peace of the people that dwell under 
it. [Applause.] 

‘ ‘ The bottom and principal sentiment is called the corner-stone 
sentiment; the foundation of structure of our Government is the 
principle controlled by the majority. It is more than the corner¬ 
stone, or foundation. This structure is a monolith, one from foun¬ 
dation to apex, and that monolith stands for and is the principle 
of Government by majorities ascertained by constitutional meth¬ 
ods. Everything else about our Government is appendage, is 
ornamentation. This is. the monolithic column that was reared by 
Washington and his associates. For this the War of the Rebellion 
w’as fought; for this and its more perfect security the Constitution 
was framed; and when this principle perishes, the structure which 
Washington and his compatriots reared, lies dishonored in the 
dust. The equality of the ballot demands that our appointments 
in the States for legislative and congressional purposes shall be so 
adjusted that there shall be equality in the influence and the power 
of every elector, so that it shall not be true anywhere that one 
man counts two, or one and a half, and some other man counts 
only one-half. 

‘ ‘ But someone says that this is fundamental. All must accept 
this truth—not quite. My countrymen, we are comforted by this 
condition of things in menace. To-day a Government by the 
majority expressed by an equal and free ballot, is not only'threat- 
ened, but it has been overturned. Why is it to-day that we have 
legislation threatening the industries of this country ? Why is it 
that the paralyzing shadows of free trade fall upon the manufact¬ 
urers and upon the homes of our laboring class? It is because the 
laboring vote in the Southern States is suppressed. There should 
be no question about the security of these principles so long estab¬ 
lished by law, so eloquently set forth by my friend from Connecti¬ 
cut, but from the fact that the workingmen of the South have been 
deprived of their influence in choosing representatives at Wash¬ 
ington. 

“ But some timid soul is alarmed at the suggestion. He says 
we are endeavoring to rake over the coals of an extinct conflict, 
to see if we may not find some embers in which there is yet suffi¬ 
cient vitality to rekindle the strife. Some man says you are act¬ 
uated by some unfriendly feelings towards the South. You want 
to fight the war over again; you are flaunting the ‘bloody shirt.’ 
My countrymen, these epithets and that talk never have any ter¬ 
ror for me. T do not want to fight the war over again—and I am 



26 


THE COLORED MAN 


sure no Northern soldier does—and there must be many here of 
gallant Michigan regiments, some of which I had the pleasure 
during the war of seeing in action; not one of these wish to renew 
the strife or fight the war over again. Not one of this great as- 
semblance of Republicans who listen to me to-night, wishes ill to 
the South. If it were left to us here to-night, the streams of her 
prosperity would be filled. We would gladly hear of reviving 
and stimulated industry. We gladly hear of increasing wealth m 
the South. We wish them to share the onward and upward 
movement of the great people. It is not a question of the war; 
it is not a question of what was done between ’6i and ’65 at all, 
that I am talking about to-night. It is what they have done 
since ’65. It is what they did in ’84 when a President was to be 
chosen for this country. 

“ Our controversy is not one of the past; it is of the present. 
It has relation to that which will be next November when our 
people are again called to choose a President. What is it we ask ? 
Simply that the South live up to the terms of surrender at Ap¬ 
pomattox. When that great chieftain received the surrender of 
the army of Northern Virginia, when those who had for four years 
confronted us in the battle stacked arms in surrender, the terms 
were simply these: You shall go to your homes and shall be there 
unmolested so long as you obey the laws in force where you re¬ 
side. That is the sum of our demand. We ask nothing more of 
the South to-night than that they should cease to use this recov¬ 
ered citizenship which they had forfeited in the Rebellion to op¬ 
press and disfranchise those who equally with themselves under 
the Constitution are entitled to vote—that and nothing more. 

“ I do need to enter into details; the truth to-day is that the 
colored Republican vote of the South, and with it, and by conse¬ 
quence, the white Republican vote of the South, is deprived of all 
effective influence in the administration of this Government. The 
additional power given by the colored population of the South in 
the Electoral College was more than enough to reverse; yes, 
largely more than reverse the present Democratic majority of the 
House of Representatives. How are we to insist that everywhere. 
North and South, in this country of ours, no man shall be deprived 
of his ballot by reason of his politics? There is not in all this 
land a place where any rebel soldier is subject to any restraint or 
is denied the fullest exercise of the elective franchise. Shall we 
not insist that what is true of those who fought to destroy the 
country, shall be true of my men who fought for it, or loved it 
like the black men of the South did [applause]; that to belong 
to Abraham Lincoln’s party shall be respectable and respectable 
everywhere in America? [Cheers.] 

“But this is not simply a Southern question. It has become 
to be a national question ; for not only is the Republican vote 
suppressed in the South, but I ask you to turn your attention to 




AND THE BALLOT 


27 


as fair and prosperous a territory as ever stood at the door of the 
Federal Union, asking admission to the sisterhood of States. See 
yonder in the Northwest, iJakota, the child of all these States, 
with 500,000 loyal, intelligent, law-abiding, prosperous American 
citizens robbed to-day of all participation in the affairs of this na¬ 
tion. The hospitable door which has always opened to Territories 
seeking admission, is insolently closed in her face, and why? 
Simply because the predominating sentiment in the Territory of 
Dakota is Republican—that and nothing more. And that is not 
all. The question of a free and honest ballot has crossed the 
Ohio River. The overspill of these Southern frauds has reached 
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois—indicating to my mind a national 
conspiracy, having its center and most potent influence in-the 
Southern States, but reaching out with Ohio, Indiana, and Illi¬ 
nois, in its attempt by fraud to possess the Senate of the United 
States. Go down to Cincinnati and look at the election returns, 
shamelessly, scandalously manipulated to return members to the 
Senate and House of Ohio, in order that that grand champion of 
Republican principles, John Sherman, might be defeated. Go 
yonder with me to Chicago, and look into those frauds upon the 
ballot, devised and executed in furtherance of the same iniquitous 
scheme intended to defeat the re-election of that gallant soldier, 
that peerless defender of Republican principles, John A. Logan, 
of Illinois. [Great cheering.] 

“ And those people have even invade d Ind iana., At the last 
election in my own State, first by gerrymander,TEey disturbed and 
utterly destroyed the equality of suffrage in that State. It was so 
framed as to give the Democrats a majority of fifty on joint ballot; 
and Indiana gave a popular Republican majority on members of the 
Legislature, of 10,000, and yet they claimed to have the Legis¬ 
lature. And that is not all. Then when gerrymander had failed, 
they introduced the eraser to help it out [laughter], scratched our 
tally sheets, shamelessly transferred ballots from Republican to 
Democratic candidates. How are we going to deal with these 
fellows? As to the Southern aspect of this question, I have first 
to suggest that it is in the power of the free people of the North, 
those who love the Constitution and a free and equal ballot, those 
who, while claiming this high privilege for themselves, will deny 
it to no other men, to elect a President who shall not come in the 
enjoyment of the usufruct of these crimes against the ballot. 
[Applause.] That will be great gain. And there should be 
placed in the Southern States in every official exercising federal 
authority, men whose local influence is against these frauds, instead 
of such men as the district attorney appointed by Mr. Cleveland, 
who in this recent outrage upon the ballot of Jackson, Mississippi, 
was found among the most active conspirators, when, by a public 
resolution of a Democratic committee. Republicans of that city 
were named away from the polls. 



28 


THE COLORED MAN 


‘ ‘ There is a vast power in protest. Public opinion is the 
most potent monarch this world knows to-day. Czars tremble in 
its presence; and we may bring to bear upon this question a 
public sentiment, by bold and fearless denunciation of it, that will 
do a great deal towards it. Why, my countrymen, we meet now 
and then with these Irish Americans and lift our voice in denun¬ 
ciation of the wrongs which England is perpetrating upon Ire¬ 
land. [Applause.] We do not elect any members of Parlia¬ 
ment, but the voice of free America, protesting against these 
centuries of wrongs, has had a most potent influence in creating, 
stimulating, and sustaining the liberal policy of William E. Glad¬ 
stone and his associates. [Great applause]. Cannot we do as 
much for our oppressed Americans? Can we not make our 
appeal to these Irish-American citizens who appeal to us in behalf 
of their oppressed fellow-countrymen—to rally with us in this 
crusade against election frauds and intimidation in this country 
that they have made their own ? 

“ There may be legislative remedies in sight when we can 
once again possess both branches of the National Congress, and 
have an executive at Washington who has not been created by 
these crimes against the ballot. Whatever they are, we must 
seek them out and put them into force, not in a spirit of enmity 
against the men who fought against us—forgetting the war, but 
only insisting that now nearly a quarter of a century after it is 
over, a free ballot shall not be denied to the Republicans in those 
States where rebels have been rehabilitated with a full citizenship. 
[Applause.] Every question waits the settlement of this. The 
tarift' question would be settled already if the six million black 
laborers in the South had their due representation in the House of 
Representatives. [Applause.] 

‘ ‘ And my soldier friends who are interested that liberal pro¬ 
visions should be made for the care of the disabled soldier, are 
they willing that this question should be settled without the 
presence, in the House of Representives, of the power and influ¬ 
ence of those faithful black men of the South, who were always 
their friends? [Applause.] The dependent pension bill would 
pass over the President’s veto, if these black friends of the Union 
soldier had their fair representation in Congress. [Applause.] 
The question of a free and equal ballot is the dominant question; 
it lies at the foundation of our Government, embracing all others, 
because it involves the question of a free and fair tribunal, to 
which every question shall be submitted for arbitrament and final 
determination. Therefore, I would here, as we shall in Indiana, 
lift our protest against these wrongs which are committed in the 
name of Democracy; lift high our demand and utter it with reso¬ 
lution, that it shall no longer be true that anywhere in this coun¬ 
try men are disfranchised for opinion’s sake. 

‘ ‘ I believe that there are indications that the power is taking 




AND THE BALLOT. 


29 


hold of the North. Self-respect calls upon us. Does some 
devotee at the shrine of mammon say it would destroy the public 
peace? Do we hear from New York and her marts of trade that 
it is a disturbing question and we must not breach it? I beg our 
friends and those who thus speak, to recollect that there is no 
peace, that there can be no security for commerce and security 
for the perpetuity of our Government, except by the establishment 
of justice the world over.” 

If this speech be not golden sentiment woven into patriotic 
music, crowned with justice and loaded down with the grace of 
man, what can it be? Loyal citizens know its worth. But if 
General Harrison had made this same speech in any Southern 
State, the consequence would have been a source of serious 
apprehension. The same may be said of Mr. Blaine’s Augusta 
speech; the same of Senator Sherman’s and the utterances of 
other fearless champions of human rights. North of Mason and 
Dixon’s line, they are at liberty to think—think and express. 
But south of that line, such rights are limited, and at most times 
and places, totally prohibited. But a Southerner may cross the 
Ohio, invade the precious soil of the North, set foot upon the 
hills or in the village towns of far Minnesota, and even there 
express his rebel sentiments in full and unharmed. Republican 
principles permit this—all round and over; at all times and places. 
This is the Republican idea of a Republican Government. 

The Democrats boast of a solid South. But that element 
and principle which enter in co-partnership to make the South 
solid, are but a packed and solid mass of political corruption and 
rottenness. Without this, the South has never been, and will 
never be, solid. 

Political degradations, betrayals, disappointments, revolu¬ 
tion, convulsions, mysterious upheavals and other unnamable 
emotions, go forever on with the smiles of time. By reason of 
this fact we always have around us a dissension of men and a 
formation of new parties, natural, singular or indifferent. And 
thus the political cloud goes on—ever changing and never still. 
But mark the wonder. The main tide of restlessness and 
dissensions has its deep channels and sustaining streams not in 
the South, but the North. ' Of all branching and newly-formed 
parties, nearly all have their source north of the old political line, 
and i" is seldom that the mouth of these extend far south of that 
line. That much can be said for the South. There the two 






30 


THE COLORED MAN 


parties are about the same now as twenty years ago. Both races 
of that section have made but slight change of their political 
sentiments since war days. Since that time, Southern Democrats 
have exercised such little variation of their political faith that 
human genius can scarcely detect it. Whatever may be the 
opinion of an average Southern Democrat concerning labor, tariff, 
prohibition or other great or minor questions of the day, still he 
would dare and stab everything else than his party on the election 
day. The same of the colored man in Dixie land. He, too, 
would sacrifice everything else than his party on election day. 
So, taking everything in consideration, nowhere above a political 
sea or beneath a political sky, nowhere in this or any other 
country, is there so nearly a political sameness as in the Southern 
States. But when we call under our survey figures and facts con¬ 
cerning the last three or four national elections in Southern 
States, everything comes without reason and the whole matter 
summed up is a logical inconsistency. But the truth itself will 
talk when we take in consideration or scale a few dots of this un¬ 
founded, unreasonable Democratic rascality. 

In 1872 Virginia gave a Republican majority of 1,772; "but 
1876, when the Democrats inaugurated a wholesale system of 
fraud, Virginia went Democratic by a majority of 44,112; 1868, 
South Carolina gave a Republican majority of 17,064, and in 
1872, it was 49,400; but in 1876, the year of Democratic fraud, 
Bourbon greed brought the honest Republican majority down to 
the disgraceful and shameful figures of 964; and in 1884, the 
South Carolina Democrats counted themselves a majority of 
48,112. In 1868 Grant carried North Carolina by a majority of 
12,168, and in 1872 he had a majority of 24,675; but in 1876, the 
old pine-tree Democrats, burning with revenge, reversed the 
political table, and wrote Tilden a majority of 17,010; and in 
1884, holding to the same pen and ink, they recorded Cleveland a 
plurality of 17,884. In 1872, Mississippi gave a Republican 
majority of 34,887; but in 1876 the Mississippi Bourbons shocked 
the nation when they claimed a majority of 59,568. But they 
were Democrats, and their claim was granted. In 1884 these 
same Democrats became so honest as to satisfy themselves with 
a small plurality of 33,001. In 1872, our orange-flavored Florida 
gave a Republican majority of 2,336; but in 1876, the Democrats 
almost stole it, leaving the Republicans with a scanty sum of 926 



AJVD THE BALLOT 


31 


in the lead; while in 1884 those Democrats endeavored to give 
Cleveland at least a plurality of 3,738. The endeavor had its 
effect In 1868, Alabama went Republican by a n^jority of 
4,272; but in 1876, the tide changed and the Democrats carried 
Alabama by a majority of 33,772; while in 1884, they wrote 
Cleveland a plurality of 33,529. Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee 
and Texas would only swell the list of Democratic corruption and 
inconsistency. But the already-made comparisons give evidence 
of the injustice and never-ending cruelty heaped and waged upon 
Southern Republicans. There is no getting around it, the Demo¬ 
crats are determined to rule or ruin; the nation had better wake 
up. 

Colored men, how long will you swallow these pills ? How 
long shall the “handful” of us continue to fall, like hungry pigs, 
to Democratic biddings? How long before we resist Democratic 
outrages and insults? How long? 

The Democrats have a hold, a false, fraudulent, and a dis¬ 
honest hold upon this, the grandest and foremost Government in 
the world. They make and urge fraudulent claims, and this, too, 
without one word of excuse. They claim that they have ex¬ 
changed their old principles for new and better ones; not so. 
They claim that they are the progressive, advanced, and advanc¬ 
ing party; not so. They claim themselves capable of running 
this Government on economical terms and taking care of the 
nation; not so, for the nation takes care of them. They claim 
the famous 153 electoral votes theirs; not so; honesty divides 
these votes, but rascality makes them solid. From year in to 
year out. Democratic claims are corrupt and corrupting. Had I 
no reason for these assertions, and no grounds for proof, as far as 
my lips and my tongue are concerned, these remarks would go 
unheard of forever. But evidence is not wanting; marks of proof 
are recorded, and these marks will show that Democratic rule is 
bringing our Government down to’the fame of inequality. Below, 

I submit a table based upon the last census. It consists of a 
number of States, North and South, and the nurhber of Repre¬ 
sentatives from each. The Southern States will consist of those 
in which the colored people are, politically, unrepresented; there¬ 
fore, the colored population of these States will not be given:— 



32 


THE COLORED MAN ^ 


States. 

Representa¬ 

tives. 

Inhabitants. 

Inhabitants to 
each 

Representative. 

Alabama. 

8 

662,328 

82,791 

Connecticut. 

4 

623,312 

155,828 

Arkansas. 

5 

510,611 

102,122 

Minnesota'. 

5 

780,806 

156,161 

Florida. 

2 

141,802 

70,901 

Delaware. 

1 

146,648 

146,648 

Georgia.’.... 

10 

814,261 

81,425 

W isconsin. 

9 

1,315,480 

146,162 

Tennessee. 

10 

1,139,120 

113,912 

Iowa. 

11 

1,624,112 

147,646 

Texas.. 

11 

1,197,499 

108,863 

Michigan. 

9 

1,629,064 

181,007 

Louisiana. 

6 

455,007 

75,834 

California. 

6 

864,686 

144,114 

Mississippi. 

7 

479.371 

68,481 

Kansas. 

7 

995,152 

142,164 

South Carolina. 

7 

391,224 

53,032 

New Jersey.| 

7 

1,130,741 

161,534 


In the above table, we have one-half of the States compared, 
nine of which are Northern and Western, and the other half are 
Southern States. The table is so arranged that one Southern 
State is placed above or beneath a Northern or Western State, so 
that the reader may see the CQinparison as he reads. When an¬ 
alyzed, the comparison becomes more and more ridiculous to the 
eye of understanding. Alabama, with a represented population 
of 662,328 inhabitants, has eight Representatives, or one to every 
82,791 inhabitants, while Connecticut, with 623,312 inhabitants, 
or nearly as many as Alabama, has only four Congressmen, or 
one to every 155,828 souls. Thus the reader can easily scale the 
table for himself A still more complete summary could be thus 
stated: Four Northern States, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas and 
New Jersey, bave only twenty-eight Congressmen for a popula¬ 
tion of 4>350^635, while four Southern States, Alabama, Louisi¬ 
ana, Mississippi and South Carolina, have twenty-eight Congress¬ 
men for a population of only 1,987,930 inhabitants. But still 
more complete, the comparison is thus summed: The nine South¬ 
ern States have sixty-six Congressmen for a combined population 
of 5,791,213, or a Congressman for every 87,745 inhabitants; 
while the nine Northern and Western States have only fifty-nine 
Congressmen for a combined population of 9,110,003 inhabitants, 
or only one Congressman to every 154,406 inhabitants. These 
figures , of review carry with them a double signification. It 
means, first, that the colored population of the Southern States 
are wholly disfranchised, or, if the assertion be reversed as to 





























AND THE BALLOT 


33 * 


section, we find that in the nine Northern and Western States, 
3 > 3 ^S '790 living souls are disfranchised. Any way you go at it, 
the Democrats, to control the Government, voluntarily disfran¬ 
chise between three and four million people. This is the, Bourbon 
rule of political equality. 

The causes, circumstances, and the known methods by which 
these political scandals are carried on with perfection in Southern 
States are obvious. The general tone of Southern papers. South¬ 
ern politicians, Southern leaders and rulers, is such as to encour¬ 
age and inspire the dominant forces to work ruin upon the nation 
and the nation’s children. That the reader may bear witness to 
this truth, on a few of the following pages I shall submit a few 
editorials, a few sayings and doings of Southern Bourbons that 
give voice to Southern violations, Southern injustice and brutality. 
Southern bigotry and self-conceitedness. Southern cruelties and 
outrages waged against the children of Ham, and that, too, to the 
ruin and shame of our country’s fame. 

I may first refer to Jackson, Mississippi, where the colored 
people have unjustly arrayed against them not only the Bourbon 
politicians, but the Bourbon preachers. Rev. J. L. Tucker, 

who delights to stand in a Mississippi pulpit and spit gobbles of 
filth on a “ nigger ’ ’ for Democratic revenge, this man is an ordi¬ 
nary specimen of a Southern Democratic divine. Note the result: 
Jackson becomes one of the headquarters of Democratic outrages. 
This was seen in the late election held in that city. A statement 
of such action is now in order. To begin with: Previous to the 
election, it was reported that a serious difficulty arose between a 
white and a colored man. A fight ensued ; and, according to the 
reports, the colored man “got the best’’ of his white antagonist, 
which resulted in the latter’s death. The consequence was as 
usual: The Democrats resolved a revenge; they met, made 
speeches, debated, and passed incendiary resolutions. One of 
the resolutions resolved and passed, was to circulate upon a pla¬ 
card two Winchesters, intersecting each other and ready for action, 
beneath which were as many six-shooters similarly arranged. 
This picture itself suggested to the colored voters thoughts and 
facts untold and untellable. It was a political warning. The 
warning was fully comprehended. But fearing that the picture 
might fail to tell all that was meant, the blood-heated and blood¬ 
heating Democrats, in convention assembled, resolved the fol¬ 
lowing:— 




34 


THE COLORED MAN 


‘ ‘ Driven by no sudden passion or blind impulse, but actuated 
by a firm and deliberate sense of duty we owe to ourselves and 
our race, we hereby warn the negroes that if any one of their 
race attempts to run for office in the approaching municipal elec¬ 
tion, he does so at his supremest peril.” 

Of course, after the circulation of the above mild and deter¬ 
mined address, the colored men, ‘ ‘ driven by a sudden passion ’ ^ 
of understanding, met and resolved the following:— 

“That in the interest of peace and harmony, and the protec¬ 
tion of life and property, the colored people refrain from voting 
or in any way participating in said election. 

‘ ‘ Resolved, further. That the colored candidates for Aldermen 
are hereby withdrawn.” 

The Democrats having been thus assured of success, and of 
having no Republican opposition, again met and thus resolved:— 

“ Whereas, The Convention having received the assurance 
that hereafter no negro Alderman or negro policeman will be a 
part of the city government, and that in the election to be held 
Monday next, none but white men will vote, the negroes having 
voluntarily stayed away from the polls; therefore be it resolved,” 
etc. 

This is the danger, this the outrages that Southern Republi¬ 
cans encounter from time to time, and from year out to year in. 
Then the Democrats have the insulting audacity to say that the 
“negroes voluntarily stayed away from the polls.” Think of 
this. Think of a vast army of an organized Democratic mob, in 
convention assembled, unanimously resolving and agreeing to 
circulate designs of guns and revolvers to maliciously warn colored 
voters from the polls, and simultaneously drawing resolutions 
menacing the lives of colored men if they dare vote or run for 
office. Think of the Constitution and of the Mississippi Demo¬ 
crats stamping it beneath the mud of scorn. Comment is weak ; 
space and time admit of nothing but facts. Therefore, dear reader, 
draw your own conclusion, and let us pass on. 

Mississippi has a sister, a noted and famous sister, that proposes 
to be not a leap behind other Southern States in the steady and 
unbroken line of march against human rights and human liberty. 
Everybody that knows anything of Southern politics, knows 
Louisiana’s attitude to the colored man. Take, for instance. New 
Orleans, the chief city of the Gulf States. In that city is pub¬ 
lished the Picayune, a representative Democratic paper, whose 
tone is the common tone of Democracy—and its hatred for the 




AND THE BALLOT 


35 


colored race has no signs of limitation. For it was but a short 
time ago that the Bourbon editor of this Democratic organ took 
an advantage of an occasion to outpour his heap and flow of 
wrath and temper in his undignified remarks concerning the so¬ 
cial presence of the colored race in the Southern States. His 
article of censure and unjust condemnation was headed, “An¬ 
other Negro Exodus.” He scornfully essayed upon a late plan 
or suggestion of organizing a wholesale system of colored emi¬ 
gration from the Southern States. This inconsistent Democrat 
half-w^ spurns the move, and yet pretendedly applauds it. 
After many vain words of expenditure, and becoming almost 
bankrupt for the want of words to express himself, and almost 
exhausted with Democratic deviltry, jealousy and prejudice, he 
unloads himself thus:— 

‘ ‘ While we are the reverse of sanguine as to the success of 
the Kansas Negro Immigration Company, we are in doubt as to 
whether it would be wise on the part of the Southern people to 
attempt to thwart or discourage its enterprise. The presence of 
the. prolific negro race in these States, is a source of very serious 
apprehension to many thoughtful and far-sighted men. The 
negro is not a success as a citizen. He has not shown himself an 
intelligent suffragan, and whenever he has had the opportunity 
of controlling legislation, he has been extravagant, corrupt, and 
in every way inefficient. He has been and-we fear that he will 
become more and more a source of corruption to the white peo¬ 
ple. The presence of a gre^t body of ignorant and venal voters, 
is a standing temptation to* politicians of all parties. When such 
a body holds the balanbe of power, the heaviest bribe will de¬ 
termine the issue, and the party struggle will be resolved to a 
mere question of money. 

“ It is true that under existing conditions the negro is very 
valuable as a laborer; but as we have said, his place could be eas¬ 
ily filled if he were to take his departure. There is no doubt at 
all that hundreds of thousands of white men would be induced 
by the superior physical attraction of the section, to settle here 
but for the presence of the negroes. 

This vile and degraded utterance was lipped and penned not 
in the bloody days of old, but in a cold day of February, 1888; 
in a year of political unforgetfulness; in a year when the Demo¬ 
crats are making a corrupt and undermining bid for the colored 
vote—North, South, and everywhere. Still a few colored inde¬ 
pendents are blind. 

The Louisiana journalist tells that the “presence of the negro 
race” keeps down the tide of white immigration to the Southern 



36 


THE COLORED MAN 


States. The reason may be and is applicable to some whites, 
but it certainly is that class of whites that occupies the same low 
level of the typical Southerner. But the better class,—the class of 
moral culture and high-pitched civilization,—this class of white cit¬ 
izens refuses to move South because of the low and degraded level 
to which the outrageous whites of that section are so generally 
and determinedly inclined. The better class of whites both North 
and West know too well the inhuman and savage-like habits of 
their Southern brethren. It is the ignorant and stubborn whites, 
as well as the ignorant blacks, that bar the progress of Southern 
civilization. This self-conceited editor grows more conceited when 
he tells us that “the presence of the prolific negro in these States 
is a source of serious apprehension to the thoughtful and far¬ 
sighted men. ’ ’ That is true—every word of it. An 4 if Southern 
Democrats persist in their brutal march of human oppression, 
sooner or later the cloud of seriousness will eventually become 
so black and heavy that showers of tyranny will pour in so thick 
and fast as to arouse the rebellious Southerners to the wake of 
judgment. 

Our many and eminent colored men who by far excel the 
narrow-minded and jealous-hearted editor of the Picayune, stand 
as every-day denials of the assertion that “the negro, as a citizen 
is not a success.” 

According to circumstances and in proportion t© numbers we 
can find as many whites in the rural districts of the South who, as 
well as the colored population, are not a success as citizens. I 
myself am a native child of the South. I was born in North¬ 
east Texas, and idled the twenty-four years of my life there among 
ignorant whites as well as ignorant blacks. Many a school-day 
have I spent in Texas—and, too, in a community where the ig¬ 
norance of the whites superseded that of the blacks to a degree 
of “serious apprehension.” To my delight, I have lived in this 
community both as laborer and student. And there did my 
teens, precious teens, begin and end. In this country community, 
for years, I was a proud school-boy; and the approaching years 
of my manhood still found me proud. My community I loved. 
It was half white and half black. Of the two races I had an every¬ 
day knowledge. I saw them both struggling with might, but to 
dififerent ends and for different motives. The colored race made 
daily strides to be a success as citizens—while the whites made 




AND THE BALLOT. 


37 


daily strides to prevent the success of their colored neighbors. 
But anyhow the colored people built a good school, built it with 
their own energy and money. They named it—named it them¬ 
selves. West Chapel was the golden name of this colored school. 
West Chapel was the idol of the blacks and envy of the whites. 

Many are the. mornings that the famed West Chapel bell 
called me to the familiar old spot I now so dearly adore. I was 
with this school and of this school in its infancy. I saw its every 
bound and leap to the front. I saw and dreaded its difficulties. 
I was with it in progress. I saw its patrons and friends. I knew 
and loved them all. My heart was with these friends. I often 
saw them sacrificing home necessities all for the benefit of West 
Chapel. 

They succeeded in doing good. But all along the line they 
had their ups and downs. With and around them mingled the 
worse terrors of life. These terrors were more savage in plight 
and heart than even the Hottentots of Africa. These terrors were 
wffiite, not black. They envied our school, our teachers, our 
students, and, more than all, our learning. These semi-civilized 
neighbors were actually too ignorant, jealous, and superstitious 
to permit their motley and uncultured children to go to school for 
fear that they might have the displeasure of passing and repassing 
the colored school-children. Thus this class of whites preferred 
to see their children go filthy and uneducated from week in to 
week out than to have them daily meet the intelligence of the 
colored population. Thus the blacks of that community labored 
with all odds against them. The whites grumbled, but the blacks 
plodded on. All the teachers of West Chapel were cultured and 
toned. They were bright and progressive young men from a 
high institution of learning (Fisk University); something that 
our white neighbors never intended or desired to see. The 
colored children seemed to have had an art of learning that 
was too generally envied by nearly all of the white children. The 
patrons were highly encouraged. Many of them—women and 
men—would often quit work, and walk three or four miles to 
hear “the little class” read in the Second Reader; “ they could 
read so sweet.” 

During all this time our white neighbors were fretting, 
pouting and grumbling. Nothing could pacify them. They 
were living upon a boiling sea of restlessness. Their constant 





38 


THE COLORED MAN 


chat was: “ Stop that old nigger bell; send them nigger children 
to the cotton-patch.” Still the colored neighbors determined to 
make a success as citizens, gently shouldered all savage abuses 
and marched on. Our progress soon took the public’s eye. AVe 
gave examinations, every one of which proved us more and more 
a success as citizens. For miles and miles away, everybody’s at¬ 
tention was aroused. Finally “examination days” became the 
height and glory of West Chapel’s ambition. And on these 
famous days thousands poured in to see and witness our voluntary 
efforts to make a success as citizens. Our white neighbors turned 
out too—but curiosity brought the majority of them. And this 
majority would never come till about “ dinner-time.” They had 
a fondness for barbecued meat and therefore carpe. 

Others of our white neighbors, who would come before 
“dinner-time,” would probably come inside the school-room, be 
attentive, hear the little classes read, and perhaps would remain 
till the multiplication table was repeated once or twice. But 
algebra, geometry, philosophy and the like were too much for our 
envious and jealous neighbors. When these studies were called 
for, and a class of black girls and boys would rise with algebras, 
geometries and philosophies in hand, then nearly all of our white 
neighbors would adjourn to the woods. Others probably re¬ 
mained to hear the calling of the Latin and Greek class—but no 
sooner than the called was finished our neighbors were gone. 

But there was still another class of our white neighbors who 
would never come any nearer than fifty or a hundred yards of the 
school-room ; they stopped for the convenience of the shade, 
that they might there crack jokes and sell water-melons all day. 
Thus the stride continued. Time passed on. The wrath of our 
neighbors became more and more indignant as years and prog¬ 
ress rolled on. And their envy became a “source of serious 
apprehension. ” And as true as there is a just God, this source 
culminated in the ashes of West Chapel. They maliciously 
burned our school; burned it to the earth, and burned it at night. 
All the time this evil was, with the colored people, a ‘ ‘ source 
of serious apprehension.” Jealousy, prejudice and envy inspired 
these white semi-civilized midnight ruffians to kindle flames of 
destruction to the house of knowledge. It is the presence of this 
class of Southerners that retard immigration. 

But more still. This is a famous and historic year. State 




AND THE BALLOT. 


39 


elections are predicatives of the popular sentiment everywhere, 
except in the South. Louisiana has had her election. Every¬ 
body knows the result. Both the great parties nominated candi¬ 
dates. The Democratic Governor, at the outset, promised the 
Republicans of that State -protection, and that a fair election was 
assured. Republicans everywhere were highly encouraged, for 
they knew that in case of a fair election in Louisiana, the Repub¬ 
licans would carry the creole State by a decent and handsome 
majority. But this Democratic promise was broken. Week after 
week Democratic editors, orators and leaders incited their country 
ruffians to do all in their power to prevent a full Republican vote. 
The ruffians obeyed. The Democratic desire was accomplished. 
The Democrats made one issue, and only one ; that issue was, 
No 7 iegro voting; no Republican office-holding. That issue won. 
Scandalous reports went abroad, but they were true, all true. 
One of the reports was this: Two colored Republicans, Johnson 
and Hawkins, each of whom was a State Representative for eight 
years, and each of whom was running for the same office in the ' 
April election of 1888, were approached in an insulting manner ^ 
by Democratic bull-dozers, and ordered to leave the State in five ■ 
days. The two gentlemen above mentioned very soon declined 
to be candidates and became refugees in Vicksburg, Mississippi. 

At the end of the time allowed the bull-dozers returned to the 
houses of these Republicans, but each had made his escape; yet 
these hungry Democratic cut-throats, determined to do mischief 
before leaving, insulted and abused the families of the two escaped 
colored Republicans. That was the issue that gave the Louisiana 
Democrats a sweeping victory in the April election of 1888. 
Tariff was no issue ; Cleveland’s message had nothing to do with 
the election. As to this statement, I have editorial proof for 
witness- 

The Democratic sheets of Louisiana editorially opposed Mr. 
Warmoth’s candidacy on the grounds that he was nominated in a 
Convention largely composed of colored men ; and that, if elected, 
his election would be due to colored men. This was the text of 
the Louisiana press. But among the most conspicuous of these 
was the editor of the Picayune. He, in common with other 
Democrats, made the color line an issue. This man, after once 
having resorted to the dictionary in search of the worst words to 
express his worst sentiments, continues his strain in the following 
manner:— 





40 


THE COLORED MAN 


“ Our people will never consent to the election of a Governor 
who would, or who ever did, upon any pretext, call for Federal 
troops to aid him in the suppression of the popular will.” 

It was from such editorials that the bull-dozers took the hint 
for getting the six-shooters ready for Democratic action. 

But the editor of the Picayune knows that the Federal troops 
were called into Louisiana to protect and not “suppress the 
popular will,” and that that popular will was Republican till sup¬ 
pressed by a Democratic minority. When a Democrat says the 
popular will, he means the Democratic will. A peep at the sta¬ 
tistics shows that the Federal troops did not do much towards 
suppressing the popular will, for in 1872 the Republican majority 
was 14,634 ; while in 1876, in presence of the Federal troops, the 
Republican majority of that State was only 4,499, a Republican 
loss of 10,145 votes. 

But, burning with self-conceit, this editor thus continues:— 

“ It was Warmoth who first organized the Republican party 
of this State, and who first introduced the negroes as factors in 
politics. To elect him now would be to indorse the most corrupt 
administration that ever disgraced the annals of Louisiana ; to 
ignore the meaning of the 14th of September, and to place our¬ 
selves voluntarily under the control of the party which is justly 
abhorred by the friends of Caucasian civilization throughout the 
South. 

“When he had the power he did everything he could to Afri¬ 
canize this State, and to perpetuate the supremacy of a corrupt and 
incompetent Government. ’ ’ 

The above editorials, when translated in plain English, read 
thus, to the Louisiana Democrats:— 

Democratic brethren, you are again confronted with a com¬ 
bined force of Republicanism. Warmoth heads a negro ticket. 
He was nominated by a negro Convention, and midst negro 
cheers; and if elected his election will be due to the negro vote. 
How is this? Can you stand it? Will you stand it? If you still 
believe in negro inferiority and Caucasian superiority ; if you still 
believe in the subjugation of the inferior to the superior race ; 
if you still believe in the doctrine of a white man's Government, 
you must not, and will not be timid, but outspoken. You must 
give Warmoth and the negroes to understand that this is a white 
man’s Government, and that in Louisiana, a Democratic minority 
shall rule or ruin. 

That’s Democracy, pure and simple. Colored Independents^ 




AND THE BALLOT. 


41 


where are you? How much has “time changed all things”? 
But passing from one Democratic State to another, gives a more 
general color of Democratic principles. Every Southern State is 
brimful of such men as head the Louisiana Democracy. Per¬ 
haps the reader is well aware of this fact, and, this being true, it 
will endow us with a comprehensive knowledge of Democratic 
sentiments and characteristics to pass by other Southern States 
of Louisiana’s make-up, and try the Missouri Compromise region 
to see if there be any comfort for the black man in the Demo¬ 
cratic party in that part of the world. We can interview the St. 
Louis Republican^ another Democratic organ. 

The editor of the St. Louis Republicayi puts it in white and 
black, in plain English, as did the Louisiana man, that not a grain 
of good feeling courses through his veins for the negro race. He 
despises the very existence of the race on American soil. Not 
only this, he despises the negro everywhere. He has, so to 
speak, gone to every State in the Union to despise him. He has 
gone to Africa and despised the negroes there. He has gone to 
the British Islands and despised them there. And now this Dem¬ 
ocrat sits in St. Louis weeping because there are no more negro 
worlds to despise. 

I have before me an editorial of this Democratic editor, dated 
February 23, 1888. The editorial to which I refer is a complete 
article on race slander. He tells that the negro is a pull-back to 
American civilization, and says that the question as to what will 
become of the seven hundred thousand negroes in the British West 
Indies is a small one to the six million in the United States. And, 
continuing, he adds:— 

“In three Southern States, Louisiana, Mississippi and South 
Carolina, the negroes outnumber the whites. In South Carolina 
there are sixty negroes to thirty-nine whites; Mississippi, sixty- 
five negroes to forty-seven whites, and in Louisiana, forty-eight 
negroes to forty-five whites. These are the proportions that 
prevail in these States, where they are called black districts; the 
proportions are more striking in these districts where there are 
four, five, and seven negroes to every one white person ; indeed, 
the perpetuation of the blacks in the low bottom-lands of South 
Carolina and the river and bayou lands in Louisiana, is forcing 
the whites to seek homes elsewhere and abandon the soil to the 
inferior race, whose presence in overpowering numbers benumbs 
all enterprise, arrests progress and stifles civilization. 

“Once we wanted Cuba, and would have given $100,000,000 
for it; and now we wouldn’t have it as a gift. We were offered 



42 


THE COLORED MAN 


the island of St. Thomas by the Danish Government, but we 
refused to accept it. San Domingo applied for admission into the 
Union ; although the plan was backed up by the whole authority 
of the Grant Administration, it was rejected. In short, there is 
not one of these fair and fertile Antilles that we would have on 
any terms ; and the reason is that they are dominated by the 
blacks. We desire cold and bleak Canada because it has a white 
population. 

‘ ‘ But we have a race problem on our hands sufficiently trouble¬ 
some already without being aggravated by the annexation of 
s^ven hundred thousand more blacks, wherein one of the largest 
of the West Indies is lapsing into fetishism of their ancestors.” 

There’s another Democratic pill; colored men, can you crack 
the nut? Can you explain the unexplainable? We have scaled 
the Democratic party from Louisiana to Missouri, the headquarters 
of the Compromise Bill, and still we find that a Democrat is a 
Democrat—that and nothing more. 

It is strange that the colored population of to-day is ‘ ‘ forcing 
the whites to seek homes elsewhere,” when thirty years ago the 
whites of ‘ ‘ South Carolina bottom and Louisiana river and bayou 
lands” would not be contented in a community without the blacks. 
Then, the whites would give anything, even their religion, for the 
blacks. They bought the blacks, they stole the blacks, they 
bossed the blacks, they claimed the blacks, they owned the 
blacks. They poured the blacks in from everywhere, and to 
everywhere, for all occasions and at all times. Anyway you go 
at it, they were determined to have the blacks at any rate and any 
cost. Now comes the report from Democratic headquarters that 
the negroes are “ forcing the whites to seek homes elsewhere.” 
What a world of sham and false prophets! 

Is it not strange that when the black man did not know what 
the letter A was, the whites could live in the bottoms with him, 
but as soon as the black man learned the letter A, the white man 
would get up and run? I say. Isn’t it strange? Indeed it is. 
Everybody knows the reason that thirty years ago the white man 
would live in the river bottonis with the black man, the white 
man could dare the black man to take up a spelling book; and 
when the black man went over this dare, then the white man’s 
whip and vthe black man’s blood had a settlement. That is the 
reason. But now things are changed. The black man not ‘ ‘ only 
takes” up a spelling book, but he spells, not only spells, but 
teaches it. “ That’s what’s the matter with Hannah.” No won- 



AJVD THE BALLOT 


43 


der the white folks leave the river bottoms—too many blacks with 
spelling books. Whenever a black man barbarizes into barbarism 
then the whites stick to him. But whenever he civilizes into civili¬ 
zation then the whites are forced “to seek homes elsewhere. “ 

Behold how fast the blacks are civilizing even along the 
Southern bottoms! Atlanta, Georgia, has two first-class colored 
colleges. New Orleans, Louisiana, has two, and Marshall, Texas, 
has two. In these institutions of learning, even these, hundreds 
of blacks are being educated, and are imparting the same to the 
many blacks throughout the South, even along the South 
Carolina bottom and Louisiana river ahd bayou lands. It is 
this attitude of the blacks that gives to the whites a very serious 
source of apprehension. Our Bourbon friend should explain in 
full, not by half. This editor is honest, honest enough to be as 
mean as a Democrat can get to be; and mean enough to be so 
bold as to tell the Democratic reason for the rejection of the 
. several oceanic islands. It matters not how fertile or fair these 
South Sea islands may be, nor how advantageous to the United 
States they may be, the one and only Democratic objection is, 
these islands are dominated by blacks, not whites. They favor 
Canada because her population is white; oppose Cuba because 
hers is black. No more objections. That is all. This is a 
grand specimen of Democratic statesmanship. Still these negro- 
hating Democrats are making undermining bids for the colored 
vote—sometimes by deceitful counsels, and other times by the 
shot-gun. And these blood-eating Democrats believe and de¬ 
clare the colored men are fools enough to be deceived and shot, 
and then, again, fools enough to rally next November and vote 
for the men that shot and deceived them. May be so. But such 
fools will not live long. No, Mr. Democrat, such fools as you 
are in pursuit of are scarce. And the Christian hearts of America 
will sing songs of praises to their blessed Redeemer when there 
will not be living enough of such fools to bury those unliving. 
You must bear in mind that the brother in black does not solicit 
or desire Democratic piloting. He is his own pilot, especially 
if the shot-gun company is all his dependence. You must recol¬ 
lect that, brother Democrat; you must get out of the black man’s 
way; or if you do not, and get trodden upon, you must not grunt. 
Bear this in mind, every word of it. 

All through the South, all through Louisiana and Mississippi, 




44 


THE COLORED MAN 


all through Missouri, we find that Democratic principles oppose 
Africans and Africanism, or negroes and negroism. The old lined 
and still pursued Democratic doctrine is that the “nigger needs 
a boss.” That is Democracy pure and simple. We may go to 
Kentucky, we shall find it the same thing. Take for illustration 
one of the chief sons of Kentucky Democracy. Take his 
word for it, even that, high up in the political atmosphere, the 
colored man finds no consolation in the Democratic party. It is 
all scorn and abuse. As editors shape and perfect Democratic 
sentiment and are representative characters of Democratic char¬ 
acteristics, it would do the reader justice to consult Mr. Henry 
Waterson’s opinion of the colored race. Then we shall have. 
Democratic sentiment down very fine from the cane bottoms of 
Louisiana to the tobacco patches of Kentucky. For editor 
Waterson is a representative Kentucky Democrat. Let us con¬ 
sult him. 

Always and ever he has been a red-hot antagonist of the 
black man’s rights. For it was but a few years since, when 
the colored men had called, at a certain place and time, a repre¬ 
sentative gathering of the race, that Mr. Waterson took occasion 
to spit at Mr. Douglass and other race leaders for so doing. But 
way up here in April, 1888, this Kentucky Bourbon comes spitting 
again, spitting on everybody that is black; half, third or fourth 
black. In other words, he comes spitting on everybody that has 
any connection with, or sympathy for, African blood. That is 
the way he spits and every other Bourbon that spits at all. Now 
to the point. Mr. Waterson, in the April number of the ForiLm, 
wrote a reply, or an intended reply, to Mr. Murat Halstead’s 
article on the suppression of the colored vote in the South. Mr, 
Waterson denies everything Mr. Halstead said. He denies it in 
his own way; denies it without proof; denies it with all evidence 
against himself and in favor of Mr. Halstead. In other words, 
Mr. Waterson was nigger hungry, and he simply denies for the 
want of something to deny. But, anyway, his denials I have 
before me. 

Mr. Waterson assails Mr. Halstead for his bold and manly 
fight for justice and fair play in Southern elections. He de¬ 
nounced the Ohio journalist in every line he could spare. He 
then went in search of suitable words to give Mr. rfaistead an 
unfitting and undiscovered name; failing in this, he concluded to 



AND THE BALLOT 


45 


style Mr. Halstead a “red Republican.” Every word and line 
that J\lr. Waterson wrote seemed to be fitted for the occasion 
only, and that occasion was to show the principles that he and his 
party now represent in i888.' . 

Even at this stage of political history, he represents the 
Secessionists of the late war. He represents rebellion and 
rebellionism. He represents every man that rebelled. He repre¬ 
sents every man that took up arms against his country. He 
even represents Stephen A. Alexander, when, twenty-seven years 
ago, he said that “ the negro is not equal to the white man; that 
slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and 
normal condition.” That was the sentiment that a South 
Carolina Democrat represented in i86i, and it is the same senti¬ 
ment that a Kentucky Democrat represents in 1888. In the 
article referred to, Mr. Waterson begins his say and opens his 
soul thus:— 

‘ ‘ That section of the Republican press, which may be fitly 
described as red Republican, getting its inspiration from a speech 
delivered by Mr. Blaine after his defeat for President in 1884, is 
seeking to rekindle the angry passions of the era of Recon¬ 
struction, on a claim of Mr. Blaine’s suggestion that the negro is 
suppressed, and the last three amendments to the Constitution are 
nullified by the white people of the South. Beneath this incen¬ 
diary scheme, trumped up for party uses, lurk the demons of 
race-war and anarchy.” 

Mr. Waterson is a typical Southerner and a first-class hinter. 
His hints are readily perceived. He claims that it was a sug¬ 
gestion of Mr. Blaine’s that the negro vote was suppressed. 
Not so; Mr. Waterson knows it is not so. He knows that Mr. 
Blaine’s utterance was no suggestion, but an emphatic statement of 
an emphatic truth. If he knows half as much as he claims to know 
of the Southern States, he knows that it is Democratic rule not only 
to count out and suppress the colored vote, but, if necessary, to or¬ 
ganize into mobs to carry on election. He knows that Mr. Blaine 
was not ‘ ‘ defeated for President in 1884, ’ ’ but was unjustly and dis¬ 
honestly counted out by the bull-dozers of the three Republican 
States, namely, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. He 
knows that these bull-dozers were^backed up by every State in the 
South. More than that, he knows that there is no ‘ ‘ scheme ” in a 
clamor for fair elections, but an exposure of Democratic ‘ ‘schemes 
to count out such votes and in such officers as, from time to time, 



46 


THE COLORED MAN 


seem fit for Democratic demands. He knows that such ‘ ‘ schemes ’ ^ 
are befriended by Democratic officials, from Governor up to Con¬ 
stable down. He knows that these are the Democratic ‘ ‘ schemes ’ ^ 
of unjustly preserving a solid South. He knows the one hundred 
and fifty-three electoral votes do not all belong to Democracy, 
and that too much talk about them is dangerous to Democratic 
supremacy. He knows that a wholesale suppression of voters is 
a wholesale perpetuation of a fraudulent Government. He knows 
that when a standing mob of organized men make a raid upon the 
people’s lives and property, such raiders then and there become 
nullifiers of the Constitution. And thus he knows that the “ last 
three amendments to the Constitution are nullified by the white 
people of the South.” Yet, in spite of his wealth of every-day 
knowledge, Mr. Waterson has the insulting audacity to defy an 
Ohio Republican, to make the best mention of it. He assures 
Mr. Halstead that a mention or remention of Democratic cruelties 
to Southern colored men will lead to “race war and anarchy.” 

Mr. Halstead declares and proves that the colored vote in 
the Southern States is suppressed. Mr. Waterson, for the sake of 
argument, admits this to be true. But ah! hear him explain:— 

“ If the entire wffiite population of Mississippi could by some 
miracle be transplanted elsewhere, and its place supplied by ah 
equal number of white Republicans from the Western Reserve of 
Ohio, the case would be in nowise altered; within a year the same 
antagonisms wpuld spring up, and the same need of protection 
would compel a white minority representing intelligence and 
property against a black majority representing ignorance and 
brute force. ’ ’ 

That is the way Southern white men chat by the fireside 
when black men are on the outside. Now you see, we have the 
truth from this Democrat. He admits that a ‘ ‘ white minority ’ ’ 
suppresses a “black majority;” but adds that it must be done. 
The Southerners have been wrong so much and so long that 
Mr. Waterson thinks that if Ohio Republicans immigrate to Mis¬ 
sissippi, they would catch the rebel disease. That is saying that 
the Democrats are making the country so bad that if they move 
from a certain part, and then a good set of men move in, this 
good set, in a year’s time, must become bad too. Well, if that be 
true, all I can say is, I trust the Bourbons of the South will not 
take it on themselves to emigrate in the next two hundred years. 
That is logic. For if they did, you know this would be a rebel 



AND THE BALLOT 


47 


country the year round. Let the good prayers of Christian 
churches be heard for Democratic reformation for fear that, soon 
or late, the Mississippi Democrats might take a notion to emi¬ 
grate, and then, good-by for liberty and progress. 

Mr. Waterson failing to have at command all necessary lan¬ 
guage to express his utter scorn for his darker neighbors, loses 
all confidence in himself, crosses the Ohio, wanders about in the 
Buck-eye State, and wanders still till, to his surprise and unut¬ 
terable consolation, he finds and quotes from one William M. 
Dickson, an Ohio Democrat with a Kentucky heart. As to the 
reason why Mr. Waterson quotes from Mr. Dickson, the reader 
can better judge for himself after hearing the latter gentleman’s 
arguments. It is also a reply to that ever-fearless champion of 
human rights, Murat Halstead. Read Mr. Dickson’s reply:— 

‘ ‘ Shall we continue a sectional agitation until we compel the « 
Southern States to submit to the rule of ignorant field-hands? 
Would Cincinnati vote in the affirmative on this question? This 
you dodge. You say that Cincinnati would vote by an over¬ 
whelming majority for the maintenance of the rights of men. No 
doubt of that; but that is not my question. The constitution and 
law of Ohio guarantee to the colored children of Oxford, Ohio, 
admission to the public schools, but the white citizens of that vil¬ 
lage nullify that constitution and deny the colored children their 
school rights; and this not in Mississippi, but in the shadow of 
Paddy’s Run, the town honored by your birth. 

‘ ‘ Seventy-five of the leading citizens have banded together to 
boycott these four negro children; not, mark you, to protect 
themselves against the vote, the rule of these negroes, but to deny 
to them the opportunity of education. And you are silent! The 
wrongs of the negro of Louisiana touch you, but not those at 
your door. And yet the people of Oxford would vote to enforce 
negro rule in Louisiana. Now, in my opinion, it is cruel, it is in¬ 
human, to deny the colored children the school. It is also illegal, 
unconstitutional, in every way regretable, to deny to the Southern 
* negro his vote, and it is monstrous injustice to give the whites 
there the advantage of this negro vote. But of what value in 
either place to the negro is my unavailable regrets? If race prej¬ 
udice is cruel and inhuman, how can I help it? If civilization 
would perish to allow the ignorant field-hands South to rule, how 
dare I to enforce that rule? And if I dared to enforce it, how 
could I succeed? Were you in power to-day what would or 
could you do? Reduce, you say, representation under the Four¬ 
teenth Amendment. You cannot. That part of the Fourteenth is 
dead—killed by the Fifteenth Amendment. What, then, do you 
propose? A vain and aimless agitation ? That is child’s play. 

“ Will you send an army South to compel the submission to 



48 


THE COLORED MAN 


the rule of ignorant field-hands? Grant tried this; sent soldiers 
into the Legislature; unseated certain members and seated others. 

Can you do now what Grant failed to do then ? Would 
Cincinnati aid you in sending an armed force South? Would it 
be good for the negro to awaken at this time a fierce race strug¬ 
gle? These are plain questions; will you answer them? Flighty 
anathemas, sky-rocket declamation, droll buffoonery, may amuse 
the groundlings; they do not deceive the judicious. The race 
question is a difficult one; it becomes fearfully difficult in a com¬ 
munity where the intelligent white man is outnumbered five to 
one by the ignorant field-hands. Then arises a conflict of rights. 

In 1819 John Quincy Adams recorded in his diary, speaking of 
the race problem as it then presented itself with slavery, these 
words: ‘ This is a question between the rights of human nature 
and the Constitution.’ The problem of to-day is between the 
rights of civilization and the Constitution. Until we can see our 
way clear to a proper solution of this problem, is it not the part 
of wisdom to leave it to the people directly involved in it? At all 
events it is clear that it would better things to refer this question 
to the citizens of Oxford. ’ ’ 

Now you hear it, that is the way an Ohio Democrat talks 
about the black man. On these few last pages we have consulted 
Democratic sentiment from New Orleans to Cincinnati. It gets 
no better; if anything, worse. One-half of what Judge Dickson 
had to say was something, the other half nothing,—result—a 
meaningless finality of nothingness. This man despises a negro 
—despises him so much that he despises the man that talks about 
him, especially if the talk be for the colored man’s good. Judge 
Dickson is lip and soul a rebel. He frowns upon the black as a 
good-for-nothing animal, not human. 

The Judge asks, “Shall we continue a sectional agitation 
until we compel the Southern States to submit to the rule of ig¬ 
norant field-hands? ’’ That is a bad question for a judge to ask. 

If the Constitution of the United States discriminated against 
“ignorant field-hands,’’ if in this discrimination it granted to the » 
white men of the South the free privilege of organizing into 
“ ku-klux’’ bands to mob and shoot colored men for voting the 
Republican ticket, then Judge Dickson’s question can be an¬ 
swered in the negative. But the Constitution does not grant any 
such thing. It grants to the “ignorant field-hands’’ as many 
rights as it does the Cincinnati judge. Judge Dickson had the 
daring to compare Ohio with Mississippi in its treatment of the 
colored race. In so doing he wandered off to a Democratic 



AND THE BALLOT. 


49 


county in Ohio, and blindly spoke of the “poor negro chil¬ 
dren's” school rights. He failed to do that till he was forced to. 

He says, ‘ ‘ Seventy-five of the leading citizens banded together to 
boycott these poor negro children.” Well, that is a feeble com¬ 
parison, if it is in a Democratic county. Seventy-five citizens ” 
banded together in Mississippi would do more than that. They 
would not “boycott the poor negro children, but kill them.” 
More than that, they would kill the parents. The colored people 
can endure a little school resolution better than they can a mob 
gang. To open Judge Dickson’s eyes to measures of comparison, 

I shall give him an instance of what twenty-fo2ir Democratic ‘ ‘ citi¬ 
zens ” will do in Mississippi. The Magnolia Gazette, a paper 
published in Mississippi, and bearing the date April 14, 1888, 
contains an article headed, “ Bull-dozing in Mississippi.” It reads \ 
substantially as follows:— 

‘ ‘ Considerable excitement prevails in the southeastern por¬ 
tion of this county on account of the recent exploits of several 
men, who seem to delight in creating disturbances. 

“ From the best information we could obtain, it appears that 
these men disliked certain of their colored neighbors named 
Hardy Kaigler, Ben Kaigler, and Joseph Prescott, and hax^e for 
some time endeavored to get information that would necessitate 
“regulating” them. 

“On Friday night they arrested Frank Warner, a negro 
boy about fifteen years old, and beat him unmercifully with a view 
of making him tell something against the above-named negro 
men, but without success. On Saturday they caught Frank again 
and treated him even worse than before. They asked him direct 
questions in regard to the Kaiglers and Prescott, and when the 
boy said that he knew nothing against them, a rope was placed 
around his neck, and he was told that he would be hanged unless 
he announced the questions put him in the affirmative. Seeing 
that there w'as no other way of saving his own life, the poor boy 
told that the aforesaid negro men had attempted to break into a 
store at Dillon’s Bridge. This was all they wanted, and immedi¬ 
ately started for the respective abodes of the unsuspecting negroes, 
taking the boy along with them. 

‘ ‘ The two Kaiglers were caught and placed under guard, 
and then they proceeded to the house of Joseph Prescott, on Mr. 
Richard Fortinberry’s plantation, and called him out. It was 
then past midnight. As soon as the negro ascertained what they 
wanted of him, he jerked loose from them and ran off. Several 
shots were fired at him by the crowd, only one of which took 
effect. The ball entered the right side just above the hip, and, 
penetrating the bowels, produced a wound from which he died on 

4 




50 


THE COLORED MAN 


Monday. The assassins then returned and whipped the Kaiglers 
in a most brutal manner, one of whom they left for dead by the 
roadside, but they still live, and if their lives are spared will be 
important witnesses against their assailants. 

“An inquest was held Tuesday over the body of Joseph 
Prescott, and the coroner’s jury returned a verdict in accordance 
with facts, charging twenty-four white men with the crime. 

“Warrants for their arrest were placed in the hands of 
Capt. A. A. Boyd, Sheriff, who summoned a posse of twelve men, 
and after riding all night succeeded in arresting seventeen of the 
persons named in the verdict. The accused were brought before 
Mr. I. M. Ellzey, Justice "of the Peace, Wednesday morning and 
had the preliminary trial set for Thursday.” 

That is what twenty-four citizens band together and do in 
Mississippi. Oxford is not “ a drop in the bucket.” Judge Dick¬ 
son should learn how to compare, or let the matter slide. Take 
Mr. Halstead’s reply for a conclusive satisfaction; here it is:— 

“Judge William M, Dickson’s last communication to us 
touching politics appears in small type in another column. He 
repeats his inquiry about the rule of the South by ignorant 
field-hands. There are no men in the country to whose hands 
the responsibilities of citizenship may be more safely trusted than 
the field-hands. The field-hands of the South, as well as of the 
North, possess the ballot, and we are in favor of the full and com¬ 
plete recognition of their rights, black as well as white. The 
Judge refers to the prejudices in Ohio against the blacks, and to 
outb^reaks in Butler County. Well, that happens to be the most 
bigoted Democratic County in the State, and do not regard the 
exercise of prejudices in that part of the world as an example to 
be followed. These prejudices, we presume, will wear out. At 
least, we shall not respect them. The Judge tells us what we can 
and cannot do about a fair ballot in the South. There are sev¬ 
eral things he does not know. He is a very inaccurate person. 
If we elect a Republican President and Congress, we shall see 
whether the terms upon which the recoiTstructed States were 
restored, are to be disregarded. In fact, the Judge is about the 
most ignorant man about the actualities of politics that we know. 
Can we do what Grant failed to do? the Judge asks. Yes, we 
think we can. The people were then weak through their gener¬ 
osity, and anxious to be magnanimous. Grant was a soldier, and 
was through with fighting. As the case stands and events drift, 
the whole country is to be ground by the Democratic of the 
South, using the black numeration simply to augment the white 
vote. The manhood of the North must at least demand white 
equality. The Judge belongs to the Democratic party, and very 
low down in it, and do not think Republicans need to pay the 
slightest attention to his miserable spirit of acquiescence in a 




AND THE BALLOT 


51 


wrong which is one of the greatest of which there is a record. 
He should go to Oxford, Ohio, to pose as an old Abolitionist on 
the street corners.” 

That is the way the story goes, a Democrat at the bottom 
every time. 

As far as has been stated on preceding pages, there was no 
fairness in the late Louisiana election. Later information gives 
polish to this truth. It is also true that Governor McEnery vol¬ 
untarily broke his promise of seeing that a fair election was assured. 
He broke it when, in his letter to the returning officers, he said: 
“ Warmoth is developing too much strength; see to it that your 
parish is returned strongly Democratic at all hazards.” The offi¬ 
cers, of course, obeyed. Counts were held back till the tide was 
determined. The Democrats were at a loss as to what figures to 
use in writing their majority. They thought of putting it at 
50,000, but thinking that would probably give them away in the 
coming campaign, they thought again of 20,000, but still, unde¬ 
cided, they placed their majority between 20,000 and 50,000, till 
the delayed reports would determine the exact figures for Demo¬ 
cratic rejoicing. Finally, later returns came in, and, on the first 
notice, the Democrats gave themselves away in Rapides Parish, 
where they claimed for Nichols a plurality of 7,000. In 1880, 
this parish had a total population of only 23,454; 13,942 colored, 
and 9,512 white. There was then a total voting population of 
5,287. Still, the Democrats claimed a plurality of 7,000 in that 
parish. In Madison Parish they say things went on quietly. 
Of course; they did the terrifying before election. It does Demo¬ 
crats no injustice to show them their faults. Of course, fraud prevails 
in the politics of every Southern State, but special stress is placed 
upon Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, 
because these States are so thickly settled with colored popula¬ 
tion. Now, an illustration of Alabama’s political corruption is in 
order. Go to the Fourth Congressional District of Alabama. Take 
* up the contested election case of Mr. A. C. Davidson from that 
district, and we have no evidence showing why he should grace a 
seat in the Fiftieth Congress, but all evidence showing why he 
should not. Aside from the fact that he represents a district hav¬ 
ing a colored voting majority of 26,612, plenty of other evidence 
shows the fraud manipulated by the Alabama Democrats in un¬ 
justly counting Mr. Davidson in and Mr. McDuffy out. Below 



THE COLORED MAN 


52 

is another table of political witness. These facts were produced in 
the contested election case of Mr. Davidson, and were shown to 
exist in his districts. 


TOWNS. VOTERS. NO. VOTED. DAVIDSON. m’dUFFY. 

Canton.214 276 226 

Pineapple.318 324 244 6 

Mount Hope.162 416 399 4 

Fox’s Mill .116 III III 

Sedam...106 115 105 4 

Gee Bend.141 210 190 

Total.1057 1552 1285 14 


There goes the table of Democratic fraud, showing that out of 
a total vote of 1,057, the Democrats counted 1,285 for Davidson. 
The black man is not only disfranchised, but he is made a tool of. 
The Democrats in the Fourth Alabama District did more than 
simply add unborn Democrats to their list in 1886, for they even 
went to the grave-yards and recorded the names of Democrats 
who had been dead four and eight years, some of whom had 
died during the Hayes Administration. Still (says the report), 
their votes were counted in 1886. 

As to how these rebellious Southerners mischievously and 
successfully maintain these Southern election frauds, they them¬ 
selves bear witness. And it was but a few weeks ago that several 
Southern gentlemen took occasion to do this. It was at Hot 
Springs, Arkansas, during the city election there, that several 
Democrats took it to themselves to boast of Southern brutality to 
the black man. A newspaper correspondent thus states the 
Democratic—dialogue—kind of a conversation:— 

“You don’t see any such impudence as that in our part of the 
country,’’ remarked a young Alabamian, as he watched the col¬ 
ored ticket peddlers button-holding voters. “There a negro 
knows his place.’’ 

“ What’s that? ” I asked. 

“ Well, you don’t see ’em running elections. They take a * 
back seat. ’ ’ 

“ Do you let ’em vote?’’ 

“Oh, yes! but we do the counting,” he observed with a 
smile. 

“Sometimes a voter’s name isn’t spelled right, and he 
doesn’t get to vote. Then, in our State, you can’t go within 











AND THE BALLOT 


53 


thirty feet of the polls. The challengers are inside. If a man’s 
vote is challenged and he makes much fuss about it, we jump him 
with a pair of six-shooters. But that doesn’t happen often. We 
reason with them, tell ’em its no use to vote, we’ve got to have 
things our way, and that usually settles it.” 

‘‘We don’t allow this impudence in Texas,” said a young 
man standing near by. ‘ ‘ Over in my town w'e hang negroes 
who don’t know their place. One was hanged in Tyler not long 
ago, because he took too much interest in elections.” 

‘‘What did he do?” 

‘‘Oh, he went ’round shootin’ off his mouth! He was 
warned to quit or he’d be strung up. He didn’t do it. He was 
notified to leave on a certain day; he didn’t go, but the next 
morning he was hanging to a tree. Never found out who did it.” 

“In West Virginia, we let ’em vote,” remarked a politician 
from that State, “but reason with them, and get as many as we 
can to vote our way. We resort to some dilitary tactics some¬ 
times to prevent a full vote. I remember once we had two ballot 
boxes, one for the whites, and the other for the colored voters. 
The negroes were compelled to march up between two ropes 
along a narrow passage-way one hundred feet in length. Each 
man had to walk that distance, answer questions, cast his ballot, 
and get out before another could get in. In that way about one- 
third of the negroes got to vote. But,” he added in all serious¬ 
ness, ‘ ‘ we had to do it. ’ ’ 

That is one time that a Democratic conversation was full of 
truth. These are the solid South methods; and it is a solid South 
company that heads the list. It was these self-same methods to 
which the Louisiana Democrats resorted, when, March last, they 
drove from that State the two colored Republicans as heretofore 
mentioned, namely, Johnson and Hawkins. Behold the influence 
that drove them. True, it was a mob; but it was a Democratic 
Governor who incited the mob so to do. The mob took the hint, 
when Governor McEnery said, “All law is suspended. ” This 
1 lob took the hint still more when this same Governor remarked 
that before he would permit the Republicans to have control of 
Louisiana, “ I would see this country wrapped in a revolution 
from Arkansas to the gulf ’ ’ Of course, such assurance from the 
Governor made the mob safe; and, consequently, it took such 
action as heretofore mentioned. Then the Democrats sent tele- 





54 


THE COLORED MAN 


grams that the election was quiet, and that ‘ ‘ the negroes boldly 
voted the Democratic ticket.” While refugeed in Vicksburg, Mis¬ 
sissippi, Honorable Johnson wrote a letter to the Republican State 
Central Committee, of Louisiana, which explains the cause of so 
much quietness in the April election. Here are the important 
points in his letter:— 

‘ ‘ The Democrats of Madison found out that threats would 
not secure the parish for General Nicholson, and the balance of 
the ticket, so they resorted to violence. 

“ On Monday, at i o’clock, I was ordered to leave the parish 
and remain away until after the election. I called in some of my 
white friends for protection, and I left their house about 9 o’clock 
at night, and returned home with the assurance that no harm 
should befall me, or any of my friends; but I concluded to be on 
my lookout (a lookout in the woods). 

“ At 12 o’ clock at night of the same day, twelve white men 
came to ??iy house armed with guns, took from' my house a fine 
breech-loading shot-gun and I am informed that they destroyed 
other property of mine. 

“They could not find me, so they went to my brother’s 
house, and abused him and his family. Then they went to my 
nephew’’s house, and ordered him to follow them. 

“ He states that they started to hang him and w’ould have 
done it but that one of the gang begged him off. Then they 
concluded to whip him, and it w’as a whipping indeed. He was 
whipped w’ith an iron rod, so you may judge the balance yourself. 

I left the poor boy in a bad fix. I w’itnessed the whipping myself, 
and I also saw them w hen they entered my house, but I w^as help¬ 
less, and was forced to remain quiet, or I could not have wTitten 
you to-day.” 

Such statements as the above are consistent with Democratic 
principles; and such facts brought from Hon. Fred Douglass, in 
his late speech at Washington, such wise utterance and such truths 
as angels cannot despise. In the course of his oration this great 
and peerless negro orator said:— 

“ It w^as something more than an empty boast in old times 
when it was said that one slave-master w’as equal to three North¬ 
ern w’hite men. Though this did not turn out to be true on the 
battle-field, it does seem to be true in the councils of the nation. 
In sight of all the nation these ambitious men of the South have 
dared to take possession of the Government, which they, wath 
broad blades and bloody hands, sought to destroy; in sight of all 
the nation they have disregarded and trampled upon the Consti¬ 
tution, and organized parties on sectional lines. From the ram¬ 
parts of the solid South, with their one hundred and fifty-three elec¬ 
toral votes in the electoral college, they have dared to defy the nation 





AA^D THE BALLOT 


55 


to put a Republican President in the Presidential chair for the next 
four years, as they once threatened the nation with civil war if 
it elected Abraham Lincoln. With this grip on the Presidential 
chair, with the House of Representatives in their hands, with the 
Supreme Court deciding every question in favor of the States as 
against the power of the Federal Government, denying to the 
Government the right to protect the franchise of its own citizens, 
they may well see themselves masters not only of their former 
slaves, but of the whole situation. With these facts before us, 
tell me not that the negro is safe in the . possession of his liberty. 
Tell me not that the power will assert itself Tell me not that they 
who despise the Constitution they have sworn to support, will 
respect the rights of the negro whom they already despise. Tell 
me not that men who thus break faith in God, will be scrupulous 
in keeping faith with the poor negro laborer of the South. Tell 
me not that a people who have lived by the sweat of other men’s 
faces, and thought themselves Christian gentlemen while doing it, 
will feel themselves bound by principles of justice to their former 
victims in their weakness. Such a pretense in face of the facts is 
shameful, shocking, and sickening. Yet there are men at the 
North who believe all this. 

“Well may it be said that Americans have no memories. 
We look over the House of Representatives and see the solid 
South enthroned there. We listen with calmness to eulogies of 
the South and of traitors, and forget Andersonville. We look 
over the Senate and see the Senator from South Carolina, and we 
forget Hamburg. We see Robert Smalls cheated out of his seat 
in Congress, and forget the Planter and the service rendered by 
the colored troops in the late war for the Union. 

“ Well, the nation may forget, it may shut its eyes to the 
past and frown upon any who may do otherwise, but the colored 
people of this country are bound to keep fresh a memory of the 
past, till justice shall be done them in the present. When this 
shall be done, we shall, as readily as any other part of your 
respected citizens, plead for an act of oblivion. ’’ 

Now, in conclusion, permit me to say that I have within one 
undying sentiment, and one word of counsel to my oppressed 
brethren. From the last line of introduction to the first of con¬ 
clusion, I have labored that no cloud of doubt may remain as to 
the fact that the Democrats and their wretched party have waged, 
and still persist in waging, against colored Americans, red deeds 
of crime, and horrors of such incomparable cursedness as have 
never been touched or told by the pen of fiction or the tongue of 
prophecy. That party, and the gang that sympathizes with it, 
that party of unjust men and cruel mobs, has but one famous 
motto, and that motto is this, “ White superiority and black in- 




56 


THE COLORED MAN 


feriority ”—or, “ Caucasian domination and negro subordination.” 

We hear the independent voices of independent colored 
men. Colored independents, what is it that you wish? You say 
that we must command respect. You say that the Irish do; the 
Germans do; but that we do not. Pray tell w^hat is it that we de¬ 
mand of parties and politicians. Is it that four or five of us shall be 
ministers to some foreign country? that some of us shall be city 
janitors, porters, letter-carriers and such like? Is this your 
demand? this and no more? God forbid. For while a half 
dozen of us are some foreign representatives, and a few hundred 
of us holding some other office good or indifferent, pray tell 
where are the five and a half millions of oppressed blacks? 
Where are their respects? Where their protection? What 
shall be their demands? What part of the Constitution shall 
they search for their consolation ? Is it satisfactory to a hand¬ 
ful of black office-seekers or office-holders to see five mill¬ 
ions of their race left out in the cold to the mercy of South¬ 
ern mobs, and then still left to the mercy of mob judges as 
their last and only chance for justice? If so, I call upon the 
voters of my race representing the five and a half millions of 
oppressed blacks to pass the colored office-seekers by and stand 
for justice and fair play. 

We must remember that we cannot command respect by fall¬ 
ing to our knees and deceitfully worshiping those who scorn and 
kick us without one pretense of excuse. We must remember 
that the Democrats have set foot against us for more than two 
hundred years, and that no bowing to their outrages will com¬ 
mand for us one particle of respect. It makes them worse; it 
makes them boastful; and to the civilized world it lowers our true 
standing, our respect, our manhood and patriotism, to the beastly 
level of non-recognition. 

Let us re-unite; let us add strength to ourselves and party; 
let us gather up every truth of principle, every spark of loyalty, 
and rally with vigor and force against Democracy, the head-light 
of cut-throatisn; and the common foe of our race and country. 
Conscience, good sense and race-love demand all this and more. 
For our race is not free, not half. Our Congress is choked with 
Democratic assassins who went to Washington marching over the 
precious blood of our race. We must remember this. We must 
net allow ourselves to be deceived by white Bourbons or black 
office-seeking cranks. 





AJVD THE BALLOT 


■A 


Democrats everywhere are seeking the colored man’s sup¬ 
port. But it must not be granted. When the Democrats shall 
have reformed, in act as well as in word; when they no longer 
look upon the black man as a filthy outcast; when they every¬ 
where, South as well as North, shall have recognized him as citi¬ 
zen, yes, as man; when they shall openly declare that the present 
system of masterism in the South is an open rebellion to the 
highest authority of our country; w'hen they shall have con¬ 
sidered the preciousness of human blood, and recognized the 
preciousness of such blood, whether it courses ' through the 
veins of an Asiatic white or an Ethiopian black man; when 
they shall have determined that midnight raids, “ku-klux” 
bands and mob law's be no more the characteristics of South¬ 
ern Democracy; when they shall have seen to it that organized 
crowds of human intimidations and assassinations no longer mar 
the name, and stifle the progress, of Southern civilization; w'hen 
they shall have repealed the obnoxious black laws of Southern 
Legislatures; when they no longer count in unelected Democrats to 
Southern Legislatures to enact laws in favor of the white mar 
?.;nLYvke-house and against the black man’s corn-crib; when th 
shall have learned and openly acknowleged that the cok 
man cannot support himself and family on $8.00 per month 
that too in confederate notes; when they shall have perrui^t 
the v'hite'man of the North to speak in every village town of t' 
Sbuta if he so desired; when tney shall have recognized juF 
everywhere, in church and in court; when they are no lo 
ngllifiers. of the Constitution; when they no longer clair 
one hundred and fifty-three electoral votes at the expense of 
men’^ liberties and lives, arid, in addition to all these impro^ 
ties and perhaps impossibilities, when the Democrats shr 
Equaled and surpassed our Republican principlCvS—then, c; > 
until then, will there be a reasonable plea for colored men’s diw 
\\ politics. 


THE END. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





























